ReachOut and the Fair Education Alliance

ReachOut is very excited to announce that we have been invited to join the Fair Education Alliance, a coalition of businesses, educational organisations and charities that is working to tackle educational inequality in the UK. This is a fantastic opportunity for us to represent the needs of our young people at the highest level, working together with a range of like-minded organisations to build a fairer education for all.

Established by Teach First, the Fair Education Alliance (FEA) counts the likes of Barnardo’s, EnablingEnterprise, Business in the Community, UBS and Place2Be among its members. These organisations have joined together to drive action at a local and national level in order to achieve five Impact Goals that will even the gap in education and life chances between young people from rich and poor backgrounds:

·         1: narrow the gap in literacy and numeracy at primary school

·         2: narrow the gap in GCSE attainment at secondary school

·         3: ensure young people develop key strengths, including resilience and well-being, to support high aspirations

·         4: narrow the gap in the proportion of young people taking part in further education or employment-based training after finishing their GCSEs

·         5: narrow the gap in university graduation, including from the 25% most selective universities

ReachOut has always been a proponent of fairer education. Since our founding in 1994, we have been motivated by what we see as an unacceptable status quo – the fact that young people from low income communities are much less likely to succeed than their wealthier peers, something which impacts negatively on their ability to lead the good, happy lives to which they aspire. As such, our mission aligns very nicely with that of the Alliance. Like each of the FEA’s partner organisations, we believe that working towards each of these Impact Goals is vital if we are to achieve fairer education for all in the UK.

However, what’s especially exciting about our partnership with the FEA is that we will be chairing the Alliance’s Working Group for Impact Goal 3: ensuring young people develop key strengths, including resilience and well-being, to support high aspirations. In 2014, 100% of our partner schools reported that we had a positive impact on pupils’ development of good character. Our newly-refined character development curriculum and resources, originally commissioned by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, means that we’re ideally placed to advise the alliance on how best to work towards this Impact Goal. This is a unique opportunity for a local, grass-roots organisation like ours to lead the national conversation on character development.

Having recently appointed a new Chief Executive, expanded our staff base and refined our 2015-18 Business Plan, we at ReachOut are moving into a period of sustained growth and this partnership with the Fair Education Alliance marks a milestone in our development as a charity. We’re very much looking forward to working with such an influential network of organisations and doing even more to narrow the huge gaps between young people from rich and poor backgrounds – watch this space! 

Luke Ounsworth

London