The Education System Is Changing… External Providers Will Need to Change With It.

Ready to get more strategic about getting into schools?

All of these changes create huge opportunities for external providers… but knowing what's changing in education isn't the same as knowing how to turn that opportunity into consistent school and nursery contracts.

Inside the Approaching Schools Academy, you'll learn how school and nursery decision-makers actually think, plan, buy, book and renew… so you can stop guessing what to send, when to approach, who to contact and how to turn interest into longer-term partnerships.

The Academy isn't open right now, but the waitlist is!

Join the waitlist now for VIP priority access + an exclusive waitlist-only offer before general enrolment opens.

Join the Approaching Schools Academy waitlist here: https://ceryskeneally.kartra.com/page/ASA-waitlist

Thanks to our sponsors at Thrive4Activities , previously Love admin, you can access your free ThriveHub course, exclusive to Approaching Schools Podcast listeners here.

Thrive4Activities is a specialist brand built specifically for children's activity providers 

and clubs delivering structured activities.

Designed around the realities of running an activity business, Thrive4Activities 

combines practical guidance, learning resources, planning tools and specialist 

support in one place.

Whether you’re looking to attract more families, improve retention, increase income, 

strengthen your team or save valuable time, Thrive4Activities helps providers focus 

on what matters most and turn plans into progress.

Go to Improve My Club today to get started!

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Approaching Schools podcast. I'm Cerys Keneally, and I help children's activity providers to build key business relationships with schools and nurseries without having to use cold calling or stalking. I want to help you earn a more reliable and consistent income, while building your social impact and enriching children's lives with ease. So join me as I take you on a journey, and let's make a positive difference together. If you're an activity provider, you'll probably know Love Admin. They've recently become Thrive Four, a whole new approach to helping clubs make progress on the challenges that matter most, with a dedicated brand specifically for activity providers and clubs delivering structured activities, is called Thrive for Activities. Now, the reason behind the change is simple: running a successful activity business isn't just about managing bookings and registrations. It's about managing competing priorities like attracting and retaining your families, increasing income, building a stronger team, and finding more time to focus on the things that matter most. Thrive for activities has been created to help you tackle those challenges and more through practical guidance, learning tools, and specialist support designed around the realities of running an activity business. You can find out more by following the link in the show notes. Welcome back to another episode of Approaching Schools. Now, if you work with schools, nurseries, or even colleges, I think September 2026 is going to be a really interesting point for you in education because there are a lot of changes happening right now. We've got the new enrichment framework. We've got changes to Ofsted inspections. We've got major send reform. We've got changes around PE and physical activity, breakfast clubs expanding, free school meals expanding. We've got changes around teacher workload, staffing, and funding as well. And then sitting behind all of that is the bigger schools white paper, and this is very clear direction of travel here towards inclusion, opportunity, attendance, belonging, and giving children a much, much, much broader experience of education. Now, obviously, whenever announcements like these happen, my brain immediately goes to what does this actually mean for the people and organizations that I work with who are working alongside schools and nurseries, because I think there are two ways we can look at education reform. Right, we can look at the individual announcements and think, okay, that's interesting. Or does that affect my business? Is there funding in that for me? Can I put that in an email? And I see that quite a lot now. A new pot of funding gets announced, and suddenly everybody is trying to work out how they can attach their program to it, aren't they? But I think there's a much bigger opportunity here because when you put all of these reforms next to each other, I think they tell us something about what schools are increasingly being expected to provide for children, and that is what I want to talk about today, because it feels like it's all being thrown at schools all at once right now, doesn't it? And and that's not just what's changing, but I'm going to talk to you about what I think it means, and particularly what it means if you're an external organization that wants to become a genuine education partner rather than just somebody selling another activity or service or product to schools. So, quick disclaimer before we get into this: education is devolved across the UK. So, a lot of what I'm talking about in this episode, particularly the schools' white paper, the Sendry forms, Ofsted, and the enrichment framework, these relate specifically to England, but there are different reforms and systems operating in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Wales have recently remodeled their curriculum. Scotland are undergoing changes right now. So I'm not suggesting that every policy here applies identically across the UK. But what I'm really interested in here is the bigger direction that education is traveling in as a whole, and more importantly, the implications for our sector. So let's get started with probably the most obvious one for anybody listening to this podcast: the new enrichment framework for schools and colleges. Now, I've already talked about this quite a bit on socials because I think this is a really significant development. The framework sets out eight benchmarks for high quality enrichment and identifies five broad areas, and those are civic engagement, arts and culture, nature. 

Outdoor and adventure, sport and physical activity, and developing wider life skills. Now there is now also a self-assessment and action planning tool that schools and colleges can use to assess their current enrichment provision and identify gaps. Now this is where it gets interesting because this isn't simply the government saying it would be lovely if children did some more clubs. We're starting to see an actual framework around enrichment. We're starting to see language around quality. We're starting to see benchmarks. We're starting to see schools being encouraged to evaluate what they currently provide. Now, crucially, from September, Ofsted's updated inspection toolkits are expected to take account of those enrichment benchmarks as part of personal development. Now, that really matters, doesn't it? Because one of the things I've been talking about, and I mentioned, you know, shaped the the latest episode of this podcast around the problem with the word extracurricular. If you've already had a listen into that one, because the moment something is positioned as extra psychologically, it becomes optional. Nice to have something you do when there's enough money, something that sits around the edges of education. But look at the direction we are moving in now. The government is saying children should have access to these experiences. There's a framework defining what good enrichment now looks like. There are schools that are being given tools to assess their provision, and inspection is beginning to recognize it. So my view is that enrichment is moving closer, finally, to the center of education, and I think that is huge for our sector. But this comes with a warning here too, okay? Because I don't think this automatically means brilliant schools are going to buy loads more external provision. I'm not saying that, but it does mean that schools are going to become increasingly interested in high quality enrichment that helps them achieve what they're being asked to achieve. That's different, isn't it? Because if your proposition is still we run really fun workshops for children, I don't think these education reforms are going to automatically help you really. But if your proposition is we help schools strengthen this area of their enrichment provision, reach these specific children, achieve these particular outcomes and evidence this particular impact. Well, now we're talking, aren't we? Because the opportunity isn't simply more enrichment; it's better defined, more purposeful enrichment. And I really think we, as providers, have a huge opportunity here to rise to that. Now, the second thing I'm watching closely at the moment is inspection, because Ofsted has confirmed their updates to its inspection approach from September. Okay, reflecting updated government guidance. Now, as I've just mentioned, the government school white paper specifically says that Ofsted's updated toolkits will take account of the new enrichment benchmarks, and again, think about the signal that sends. Because schools don't make decisions in isolation, do they? They are constantly asking, "What are we accountable for? What are pupils experiencing? Where are the gaps? What does our data tell us? What does our school improvement plan say? What are inspectors going to look at? What are our governors asking about, and what do parents expect? And this is one of the biggest mindset shifts I want external providers in my world to be making. Stop asking how do I convince schools they need my thing, and start asking what is the school already being asked to improve, provide, or demonstrate, and where could my organization help? Now, those are completely different sales conversations, aren't they? Because the second one positions you as part of the solution, which you will know is a big deal for me in terms of everything I teach and the methodologies that I share. So the next big one is special educational needs and disabilities. This is quite frankly enormous. The government published its SEND reform proposals in April alongside the wider school white paper. Now one of the immediate changes coming very soon is a national training program backed by more than 200 million staff across early years, schools, and colleges will have access to government-backed training designed to improve their ability to support children with special educational needs and disabilities. Now, the wider education reform agenda is very clearly pushing towards. A more inclusive mainstream system, isn't it? And I think this has enormous implications for external providers, right? Because inclusion cannot stop at the classroom door, can it? 

If you are delivering PE, drama, dance, STEM, yoga, music, outdoor learning, mentoring, life skills, cookery, whatever your provision is, schools are increasingly going to expect you to answer: How does this work for children who need something different? Not can children with SEND join in? That is a very low bar. How have you actually designed the program so that more children can participate? How do you adapt delivery? How do you communicate with the school? What training does your team have? How do you support regulation? How do you manage transitions? How do you create psychological safety? How do you respond when a child can't access an activity in the way you expect it? This is where I truly think our sector needs to professionalize because you cannot position yourself as part of the education workforce and then say, "Well, special educational needs and inclusion isn't really our area, can you? Increasingly, everybody working with children is going to need to understand and truly understand inclusion, and I think providers who become exceptional at this will become incredibly valuable partners to schools over the coming years. Now, there's also movement happening around PE because, following the curriculum and assessment review, the government is reforming the PE curriculum and has talked specifically about improving children's access to sport, both inside and outside the classroom. So, dance, swimming, and outdoor and adventurous activity-they've all featured in those discussions, right? And again, I think there's something bigger happening here. For years, children's activity businesses have often approached schools by essentially saying things like, "We teach football, we teach dance, we teach gymnastics, but schools don't actually have a strategic priority called Buy More Gymnastics. They have priorities around things like physical literacy, participation, health, well-being, attendance, behavior, confidence, inclusion, engagement, girls' participation, children who are not currently very active, staff capacity, quality of curriculum provision, and increasingly enrichment. So, if you operate in sport or physical activity, I think this is another clear reason to look again at how you're positioned. Like, don't just tell schools what activity you deliver; show them what that activity helps them achieve, because that's the difference between selling sessions and one-offs and actually building partnerships. Now, breakfast clubs might seem slightly random in an episode about external providers, but bear with me because the national rollout of free breakfast clubs is expanding following the early adopter program, and the government is saying that schools involved have reported benefits, including improved punctuality and attendance, and calmer starts to the school day. And eventually, the policy is intended to provide free breakfast clubs across primary schools. Now, here's why I think this matters. It shows that the government is increasingly recognizing that what happens around the traditional classroom can directly affect what happens inside it. So, food matters, relationships matter, belonging matters, being regulated and ready to learn matters, physical activity matters, enrichment matters, pastoral support matters, experience outside traditional lessons matter. That's the bigger story. That's why people delivering before school clubs, you know, can have a great impact on schools. Education outcomes aren't created exclusively between nine a.m. and 3p.m. by one teacher standing in front of a classroom, there is an entire ecosystem around a child, and I think policy is increasingly recognizing that ecosystem as well. Now, eligibility for free school meals is also expanding in England to children in households receiving universal credit. And again, you might be thinking, well, what does this have to do with me? And potentially nothing directly, but strategically, actually quite a lot because it reinforces another huge theme running through education policy, and that is equity of access. Who gets the opportunities? Who potentially misses out? Which children participate in enrichment? Hopefully, all of them. That's the idea. Which children get experiences because their parents can afford them, and which children sadly don't. Now, this is particularly important for providers whose business model has historically relied on parent-paid clubs operating through schools. And I'm not saying these models need to disappear. But I do think the sector needs to think bigger than them, and this is definitely a conversation we have very, very regularly in my Vibe Mastermind. Because if high quality enrichment comes, something every child should be able to access, we have to think seriously about how our models support that? Could schools commission provision? Could trust commission it? Could there be funded programs? Could you work across whole year groups? 

Could your program be embedded into the school day? Now let's take a quick break because keeping families coming back again and again isn't always as simple as running great sessions, children grow up, interests change, family routines shift, and sometimes families who were once really engaged simply start to drift away. So, how can your club give more of them a reason to stay? Inside Thrive Hub, there's a course called Helping More Members Stay Longer. It looks at the moments that can make a real difference. You'll explore how to spot the points where people might disengage, create more ways for them to stay connected, and identify where small changes to their experience could have the biggest impact on retention. If you'd like to give it a go, follow the link in the show notes to access the free course Thrive for Activities are offering for my listeners this month. Could you work with disadvantaged cohorts? Could you create a model that doesn't depend entirely on individuals paying seven pounds every Tuesday? These are the questions I really think established enrichment businesses should be asking, and as I say, it's a huge topic of both conversation and action in our vibe mastermind right now, and some very strong new business models emerging for September 2026 among that cohort. I can tell you. Now, another piece of this puzzle is staffing. Okay, we we can't dismiss this, right? Teachers and leaders in England they're receiving a 3.5% pay award from September, followed by another planned increase the following year, with additional funding being provided towards increased staffing costs. But here's the thing, right? Pay is only one part of the education workforce problem, isn't it? We know that schools are still very much operating in an environment where workload, recruitment, retention, and capacity matter enormously, and this is something I think external providers actually really underestimate their role in because sometimes your value isn't simply we improve children's confidence. It could also be we increase the school's capacity to provide something it otherwise struggles to deliver. Now that's quite powerful, isn't it? Because can your organization deliver something consistently? Can you train school staff? Can you provide specialist expertise? Can you take ownership of a particular strand of provision? Can you provide reporting and evidence without creating another admin job for a teacher? Can you make this partnership easy to manage? Because every time you require a teacher to chase you, remind you, find resources for you, explain the same thing to another member of your team, sort out your safeguarding paperwork or organize everything themselves. You haven't reduced workload for them, have you? You've actually added to it, and the providers that become indispensable over the next few years will not just be delivering amazing services to the children. They will be making life easier for schools. They're the ones getting chosen, getting booked, but also more importantly, getting renewed. Then we've got the bigger curriculum reforms, right? And there is an important distinction here because the new national curriculum itself is not arriving in September. The government is developing it following the curriculum and assessment review, with the final curriculum expected in spring 2027, and then the implementation planned in schools from September 2028. But we already actually know quite a lot about the direction of travel here. There is a greater emphasis on preparing young people for life and work. There's going to be greater recognition of arts and creativity. Yes, there's enrichment. There's digital media literacy. There's broader skills and experiences. So, I wouldn't be rushing out and changing your website to say things like aligned with the new curriculum because it it can't be yet. But I absolutely would be looking at where curriculum policy is heading and asking, "Is my program designed for the education system schools are moving towards, or the one I remember from 10 years ago? Because that's a very different question, isn't it? So let's put all of these things together now: enrichment, inclusion, special education. Needs and disabilities, physical activity, attendance, disadvantage, personal development, teacher capacity, curriculum reform, opportunity, belonging, life skills. When I look at all of that together, I see something quite significant here. I see an education system being asked to do much, much, much, much more than simply develop academic content, and at exactly the same time, schools are under enormous capacity pressure. This is all hitting them all at once, isn't it? 

And that is where I think the education enrichment sector becomes incredibly important because there are 1000s of organizations across this country with specialist expertise that schools simply cannot employ individually. Specialist sports coaches, artists, musicians, therapists-so many different types of skills that we can be bringing into schools to provide a broader experience to children and their curriculum, therapists, mentors, STEM educators, outdoor education specialists, wellbeing practitioners, drama professionals, leadership specialists, SEND practitioners, life skills educators, and hundreds of other areas, a school doesn't necessarily need every one of those people permanently on the payroll, but children absolutely benefit from having access to all of that expertise. Which is why I keep talking about this sector as part of the wider workforce around education. I don't think these reforms mean something like this is amazing. External providers are about to make loads of money. This comes with a big warning, right? Because policy opportunity does not automatically become commercial opportunity for us, and I really want to stress that because schools aren't suddenly going to start like googling local enrichment business. Please take our money, are they? Providers still need to understand how schools work, how they plan, how they buy, how budgets work, how priorities are set, who makes decisions, when decisions get made, how to communicate value, how to create provision that actually solves something. How to demonstrate impact, and how to retain contracts, and how to become something the school doesn't want to lose. In fact, I think the bar is probably going to be raised here because an enrichment becomes more strategically important. Schools are going to become more discerning about what good provision looks like, and that is good. That is a good thing. Our industry should want that, shouldn't they? So, if I was running an enrichment organization right now, I would be using this summer or what's left of it to look at my entire proposition through the lens of where education is going, I'd be asking: What school priority does our provision currently contribute towards? Which of the enrichment benchmarks could we help schools strengthen? How inclusive is our program really? How can we clearly articulate our impact? Are we helping schools reach children who currently miss out? Does our program contribute to attendance, behavior, well-being, send, physical development, personal development, curriculum outcomes, or staff capacity? Can we demonstrate progression rather than simply delivering a collection of activities? Can we give a school useful impact information at the end of a program. Can our team deliver consistently without everything depending on me? Could this become a whole school program? Could it work across several schools in a trust? Could it become annual rather than term to term? And perhaps most importantly, are we still describing ourselves as somebody who runs an activity, we've actually become an education organization because I think that identity shift is going to matter enormously. So my biggest takeaway from all of this is not one individual announcement here; it's the direction they collectively point towards. Education is bigger than lessons. Children need experiences. They need relationships. They need movement. They need creativity. They need opportunities. They need specialist support, inclusion. They need to develop confidence and resilience and skills that don't always fit neatly onto a worksheet. And that doesn't make external provision extra. They can't provide every single one of those things alone, so it actually makes organizations delivering it part of the infrastructure surrounding modern education. But we have to behave like it. We have to professionalize. We have to understand the system we're working within. We have to stop selling at. Activities and start solving educational problems. We have to measure impact. We have to understand inclusion, and we have to build reliable organizations. We have to start seeing ourselves as partners rather than external visitors. Because I genuinely think we are entering an era right now where schools are going to need amazing external organizations more, not less. But that comes with a huge caveat here: they're going to need the right ones, the organizations that understand where education is heading, the businesses that can connect what they do to school priorities, and the providers that can confidently say, "Here's what you're trying to achieve. Here's the gap we can help you fill. Here's how we can deliver it, and here's how we'll know it's working. 

That is a very different proposition from would you like us to come in and run some sessions? And for me, that is the opportunity sitting underneath all of these education reforms. September isn't just starting another academic year, it feels like another step towards a much bigger change in how we think about what education is, who delivers it, and where external organizations like ours fit within it. And I think our sector is going to have to be ready for that. And actually, this is exactly why I've been talking so much lately in my school program creator course, about understanding how schools think, plan, buy, book, and renew. Because knowing these reforms are happening is one thing. Knowing that enrichment is becoming more important, that inclusion is a priority, that schools need additional capacity, and that there are more opportunities for external organizations. That's brilliant, isn't it? But none of that automatically gets you booked. We still need to know how to take what you do and position it in a way that makes sense to a school. You need to know which priorities you fit into, when to approach them, who actually makes the decision, how to take and talk about what you do without sounding like every other provider filling their inbox. How to follow up when you hear nothing. How to turn an initial yes into something bigger than another one-off or term-to-term booking, and ultimately how to build school and nursery partnerships that actually last. That's exactly what we do inside the Approaching Schools Academy. The academy is for people who've got something genuinely valuable to offer to schools or nurseries, but want a much, much, much more reliable, repeatable way of getting them to buy in. The doors aren't open right now, but the waitlist is. And if everything I've talked about in this episode has made you think I need to get much more strategic about this before the next academic year really gets going, get yourself onto that waitlist. So waitlist members will get VIP priority enrolment when the doors open for early access, plus an exclusive waitlist only offer before general enrolment. So you will find the link to that waitlist in the show notes because there is a huge amount of opportunity opening up in education. The question isn't just whether your provision fits where schools are going; it's whether schools actually understand why they should choose you. Thank you for listening to the Approaching Schools podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, do come and let me know in my free group for children's activity providers approaching schools, so that I can make more content like this that you'll love. You can find me on my socials at Karis Kneale, and my inbox is always open. I would love for you to leave a review on iTunes and hit subscribe on your favorite platform, so you can be the first to know when a new episode is ready. Until then, chat soon.