If you’re anything like us (and 8.3 million others in the UK), you’ll have tuned in to Britain’s Got Talent over the past few weeks. We were absolutely delighted to cheer on the kids from Flakefleet Primary School, and their brilliant headteacher, Dave McPartlin. We whooped when they sailed through to the quarter finals. We’re not embarrassed to admit that we cried when they got the golden buzzer. And why are we so emotionally involved? Well for starters, it’s a school doing great things to raise the aspirations of their children. Big tick from us. Secondly, the children (and their headteacher) are having a brilliant time doing something that they love. And finally, we’ve had the absolute privilege to have worked with Flakefleet Primary school since 2016, where they have been delivering our Raising Aspirations programme to almost 200 of their pupils. In their 2018 Ofsted report, they received Outstanding in the category of personal development, behaviour and welfare, with our programme cited as evidence of Flakefleet’s commitment to developing pupil ambition.
We took 60 children from Flakefleet Primary to last year’s CIH housing conference, where they wowed the crowds with a fantastic musical routine, shared their experience of being part of our Raising Aspirations programme and encouraged more schools/businesses to make it available to kids across the country. We also brought them down to Liverpool to perform at The Regenda Group annual staff conference, where they performed in front of almost 500 members of staff. So it’s safe to say that we are absolutely routing for this brilliant school to take home the top prize in this year’s Britain’s Got Talent show. We can’t think of anyone more deserving
You can read about Dave McPartlin’s experience of delivering our Raising Aspirations programme here