When I grow up
The projects we fund help disadvantaged preschool children – improving their chances of fulfilling their potential in school, and in later life too.
15 month gap in vocabulary
between disadvantaged children and other children of preschool age.
2.5 million children in England
in the past decade didn't reach a good level of development by the age of 5.
Half of disadvantaged children
don't reach their expected level of development before starting school.
Up to 30 million fewer words
are heard by less advantaged children by the age of 3.
What we're doing
Levelling the playing field
15 month gap in vocabulary
between disadvantaged children and other children of preschool age.
2.5 million children in England
in the past decade didn't reach a good level of development by the age of 5.
Half of disadvantaged children
don't reach their expected level of development before starting school.
Up to 30 million fewer words
are heard by less advantaged children by the age of 3.
63
families reached by the Parental Engagement Network so far
£240k
of funding for communities across Liverpool, Manchester and London
1,400+
more children supported by 2022
When I Grow Up: the promising projects we’re supporting and how they’re tackling educational inequality...
Doorstep Library
Doorstep Library provide a reading and book lending service directly to family homes in deprived areas of London. They are expanding the support they give to families with children aged 0-5, including helping them find other local services that they could benefit from.
Parental Engagement Network (PEN)
PEN help to build effective relationships with parents and carers in early years settings, to help improve children’s literacy and school readiness. They’ll now scale up their school transition and home learning projects in Liverpool and expand to Trafford while helping to improve practitioners’ skills and embed the projects into each setting.
Tales Toolkit
Tales Toolkit provide online training and resources for educators to deliver play-based storytelling to children in early years settings in order to develop language, literacy and socioemotional skills. The project is supported by an expert team in parent engagement and learning from Goldsmiths, University of London, their project will train practitioners in Stockport, Rochdale and Newham (London) to engage and support families, so that they can use the resources with their children at home too.
3 WAYS WHEN I GROW UP IS HELPING TO COMBAT EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY

Support
All of the projects support children’s communication and language at the crucial stage of their early development.

Learn
Resources are provided to help parents and carers improve the home learning environment.

Prepare
Making sure that children are school-ready and able to access more opportunities through their lives.