I saw children flourish because of it - Fleetwood primary school's £20k windfall from Sir Jim Ratcliffe fund

Fleetwood’s Chaucer Primary School is set for a windfall of cash thanks to a charitable fund.

The project, founded by Manchester United’s co-owner, has been quietly helping to transform the lives of primary school children living in some of the most deprived parts of the UK for the past five years.

Funding for those initial schools has now ended, but Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Forgotten 40 is now hoping to help lessen the impact of poverty for hundreds of other children.

“We are so proud of this project,” said Brian Padgett, a former HMI inspector, retired headteacher and member of Sir Jim’s Forgotten 40 team.

“It is the best and most effective anti-poverty project I have ever witnessed in 50 years working with schools serving disadvantaged areas.”

Fleetwood’s chosen school is Chaucer Community Primary and headteacher Claire Murphy will be gifted £20,000 in September for the school.

INEOS’ charity was launched in 2020 after company chairman Sir Jim, and INEOS co-founders Andy Currie and John Reece read an article about child poverty in the UK.

After a year-long pilot scheme involving 20 schools, 100 headteachers, serving some of Britain’s most deprived communities, were chosen to receive a gift of up to £20,000 a year from INEOS and trusted to spend it wisely on helping children build confidence and discover that their futures could be bigger than their circumstances.

Since then, those headteachers have used INEOS’ money to expose pupils to things they had never experienced before.

“The support from Forgotten 40 was truly life-changing for our children,” said Iain Parks, a former headteacher who is now director of education for the Diocese of

Blackburn.

“I saw children flourish because of it.”

For the first time in their lives, children tasted ice cream, felt sand between their toes, cooked meals with their parents, watched the sun set, built dens, and slept under the stars.

Others were blown away by learning to play a musical instrument, and trips to the theatre, museums, and the Lake District.

Iain said all children needed to feel that the future belonged to them.

“We need to show children what’s out there and what the world has to offer,” he said.

“But we also need to show them the effort that is needed to get there.”

Some headteachers, involved in the initial project, used funding to buy beds for children who were sleeping on sofas. Others topped up families’ electricity meters to help them cope with the rising cost of living.

“It has been incredibly humbling for us as a team to see how these headteachers have been helping,” said Brian.

Last week Chaucer’s headteacher met the Forgotten 40 team for the first time at a two-day conference.