At the heart of our partnerships programme is a determination to enact positive change; for the remarkable organisations we work with and in our boys. Measuring change cannot be done through statistics alone. For our Voices: Partnerships Impact Report 22/23 we used a framework of data capture based on the Most Significant Change Technique. We asked our partnership community and our boys about their experiences. These conversations were transcribed and shared without editing, capturing true voices.
Josh Lenthall, CEO, Active Oxfordshire, shares his partnership story.
Active Oxfordshire is effectively part of Sport England’s supply chain, through which we create strategy around physical activity in Oxfordshire. Whilst Oxfordshire is considered a healthy and wealthy county, we know that one in two school-aged children are not meeting the guidelines for physical activity, equating to around 50,000 kids. We focus on creating healthy active children, healthy adults and healthy neighbourhoods. At least two of those areas have real alignment with what Radley College are trying to do through their partnership. We work together and use our comparative strengths. Radley College has an expertise and resources that other partners don’t have. We really come together by being aligned strategically in trying to do the same things.
I think what it’s done is provide a blueprint of how partners can work together in a collaborative way, each playing to their strength and each winning in some way to create social change. The students at Radley College benefit from the experience, the people in Oxfordshire definitely benefit, so do Active Oxfordshire, to help meet our strategic aims. I also think the partnership is starting to shift and create a model that could be followed by other organisations.
With a huge health inequality in Oxfordshire, we’ve got a bit of a ticking time bomb and what the partnership is setting out to do is to address current issues whilst helping to create the environment for long-term sustainable change so that we’re not having the same conversation in 10 years time.
