Annual Report 2024-25
Celebrating a year of collective impact
The past year has marked an important moment of transition for the Fair Education Alliance. As educational inequity continues to shape the lives of children and young people, we have focused on sharpening our impact, strengthening relationships, and setting a clear direction for the next phase of our work. As you will read in this report, we have brought together schools, charities, businesses and funders to share learning, support innovation, coordinate efforts and address shared challenges across the system. This work reflects our systems change approach, grounded in the belief that cross-sector collaboration and trusted relationships are vital to lasting change.
Neighbourhood to National: a strategy to ensure every child and young person thrives
A significant milestone in 2024–25 was the development of our new Neighbourhood to National strategy. Developed in close collaboration with our members, the strategy sets out how we will achieve lasting change by bridging grass-roots action and national policy. The strategy is built around three core strands: a strong Collective Voice to shape national conversations through insight, evidence and lived experience; Collective Action, delivered through thematic and place-based collaborations; and Collective Strength, developing the leadership and capacity for sustained, long-term systems change.
2024–25 at a glance
In 2024–25, we continued to unite organisations from across education, business and the third sector to tackle educational inequity and ensure that every child and young person can thrive, regardless of their socioeconomic background. Against the backdrop of a new Government and ongoing challenges such as teacher shortages, persistent attendance gaps and rising poverty, our members have shown the power of collaboration, with 84% actively engaging in FEA activities, representing an eight percentage-point increase from our 2023-24 member engagement (76%).
Together, we focused on four key outcomes: amplifying a collective vision for education in England, increasing coordination across the sector, diversifying leadership and scaling solutions with the goal of transforming the system and addressing the issues that perpetuate educational inequity.
A unified collective mission, vision and action
Through our policy and advocacy work, we strengthened our collective message to ensure that educational equity remained high on the political agenda. In 2024-25, we were pleased to see several of our policy priorities reflected in new Government commitments, such as the expansion of free school meals and investment in Family Hubs, changes which demonstrate the importance of our collective advocacy. These developments underscored the need for a continued unified message, and we did a lot of work behind the scenes to contribute to this. We met with MPs from across political parties to showcase members’ work and highlight our policy priorities for a fairer education system. In addition, 60 member organisations co-signed our joint submission to the national Curriculum and Assessment Review, ensuring that first-hand insights and lived experience informed the national conversation.
Read more on page 16 of our Annual Report →
Connectivity and co-ordination across the ecosystem
Connection and coordination across the sector have been central to our approach. In 2024-25, we brought together 149 member organisations through our Collective Action Working Groups, fostering trust and learning between education settings, funders, young people and policymakers. Our digital Membership Tools, now used by more than 900 people, have become a vital resource for mapping activity, identifying need and driving collaboration across every local authority in England. In addition, 154 member organisations took part in our strategy refresh workshops, shaping the direction of our next five-year strategy.
Read more on page 18 of our Annual Report →
Find out more about our Collective Action work →
Find out more about our Membership Tools and Ecosystem Map →
Diversity of leadership of the collective agenda
Our Youth Steering Group (YSG) has been at the forefront of diversifying leadership within our collective agenda. In 2024-25, they advocated on critical issues such as mental health support in schools and inclusive education, submitting evidence to the Curriculum and Assessment Review, Education Select Committee’s SEND Crisis Inquiry, the Child Poverty Task Force Consultation, and Ofsted’s Report Card. YSG members represented the FEA at key forums, ensuring that the voices of young people with lived experience were central to the conversations shaping education policy. We also supported 75 member organisation to strengthen their youth engagement work through bespoke one-to-one guidance and our Youth Engagement Working Group, helping them embed youth-led practice across their work. As a result, over half of our members are now meaningfully involving young people in decision-making processes, demonstrating a growing sector-wide shift towards shared power and co-leadership
Solutions are supported to scale systemically
To address the widening attainment gap, we continued to support and scale effective solutions that make a tangible impact. Through our Innovation and Scaling Awards, we supported 13 organisations to test and grow initiatives that tackle the root causes of educational inequity. These award winners are addressing a wide range of issues – from combating child hunger to reshaping men’s roles in Early Years education. In under a year, the Innovation Award winners collectively reached 1,200+ schools, trained 4,300+ educators and directly supported 8,000+ children and young people. Since the programme started in 2023, the FEA members in our Scaling Award supported 671,571 children and young people, an increase of 179% since beginning the programme. By offering tailored support, funding and strategic guidance, we’ve empowered all 13 award winners to expand their reach and deepen their impact. In doing so, our awardees have demonstrated how local innovations, when nurtured and scaled, can lead to systemic change and influence national education practice.
