BFI pledges £14.6m National Lottery good cause funding for education and skills development for 5 to 18-year-olds

The BFI announces funding to two UK-wide partners to deliver across three targeted funds which are dedicated to education and early skills provision for 5 to 18-year-olds: BFI National Lottery Teaching with Film, BFI National Lottery Young Creatives and BFI National Lottery Careers and Progression. Into Film will receive £12.99m over three years to work across all three programmes, and National Saturday Club will receive £1.65m for the same period to deliver Young Creatives through its Film&Screen Saturday Clubs and Masterclasses. Building on foundations from the 2023-26 funding period, Into Film and National Saturday Club will support the delivery of activity in target areas across the UK to increase access to learning opportunities for children and young people in disadvantaged parts of the country.

Arike Oke, Executive Director of Knowledge, Learning and Collections at BFI comments: “Not only is film a true artform, but the moving image is also today’s primary means of communication. Our Teaching With Film funding brings film into classrooms and into teacher training UK-wide to build not only the next generation of film-making talent, but also to help children and young people navigate the modern world with confidence. Into Film is the leading UK charity for film in education. I’m delighted that they’ll continue their innovative work, supported by the BFI.”

Sara Whybrew, Director of Skills and Workforce Development at BFI, adds: “All children and young people should be supported to develop skills for life and work, and have the opportunity to do so close to home. Through our Young Creatives Programme and our Careers and Progression Programme, we want to empower every young person to learn that whatever their interests or current skillset, there could be a job in the screen industry to suit them. It’s also important that we don’t lose sight of the importance of young people engaging in filmmaking for joy, which we know helps young people build confidence, team-working and problem-solving skills, and is good for wellbeing. We’re delighted to be continuing our partnerships with Into Film and National Saturday Club to help enrich the lives of thousands of young people across the UK.”

Into Film will receive £5.19m to deliver the BFI National Lottery Teaching with Film programme which brings film and the moving image into the classroom to support learning and strengthen cultural literacy. Building on Into Film’s decade of experience in film education and its current reach to over 17,000 schools, the 2026-29 phase of Teaching with Film will continue to target under-served communities and SEND settings, ensuring equity and access, and with a programme designed to respond in real time to curriculum changes, to the impact of AI in film, and to national priorities. Over the 2026-29 funding period, Into Film aims to achieve 270,000 engagements with teaching resources and train up to 9,000 teachers, to benefit tens of thousands of children and young people across the UK, including in areas of multiple deprivation. Into Film’s place-based strategy has identified 31 priority areas across 2026-29, including 15 continuing and 16 new locations, including include Fife, Barrow-in-Furness, Sandwell, Newham, Penzance and Omagh, ensuring more children and young people can develop meaningful relationships with a wider range of screen culture through education.

For the BFI National Lottery Young Creatives programme, Into Film and National Saturday Club (awarded £1.5m and £1.65m respectively) will work to support the delivery of filmmaking clubs across a range of settings UK-wide, supporting young people aged 7 to 16 to develop both transferable skills alongside learning about different screen sector roles. Into Film will support 7 to16-year-olds via a three-tiered approach: delivering 40 targeted place-based filmmaking clubs per year, with a focus on areas of socio-economic deprivation; building strategic partnerships with organisations including National Youth Agency England, YouthLink Scotland, Youth Cymru and Youth Action NI to co-create a UK-wide filmmaking challenge; and a universal digital offer providing inclusive digital access to youth-led content including an online filmmaking club for 13 to 16-year-olds. Building on a successful first three years of delivery where they have scaled up activity year on year across England, Wales and Scotland, the National Saturday Club’s Film&Screen programme will sustain and deepen a network of up to 40 free, extracurricular Clubs per year across the UK providing screen education opportunities over three years for around 2,225 young people aged 13 to 16, including extension into Games Design and Interactive Storytelling to respond to the rapid growth of immersive media. With participants recruited through targeted outreach in areas of educational, social, and cultural deprivation across the UK, each National Saturday Club delivers measurable creative, personal, and social impact while contributing to the UK’s screen talent pipeline.

Complementing their work across Teaching with Film and Young Creatives, Into Film have been awarded £6.3m to deliver the BFI National Lottery Careers and Progression programme, creating a coherent pathway from learning with film, to making films, to exploring careers in the screen industries. The single largest sector specific careers fund in the creative industries, the programme aims to provide coordinated, sector-specific careers information, advice and experiences to help young people aged 11 to 18 understand the breadth of roles in film, TV, animation, VFX and games, and make realistic and informed decisions about their futures. Grounded in evidence from their 2023-26 delivery and designed to address underrepresentation, occupational crowding, and build more balanced regional participation, Into Film will deliver a screen careers programme that offers over 33,500 direct engagements with young people, educators and parents, bolstered by targeted campaigns and a social media and online engagement reach of c. 5 million. A place- based model will also ensure that 80% of targeted activity takes place in areas with the highest indicators of disadvantage or lowest engagement with existing careers provision.

Fiona Evans, CEO of Into Film, comments: “I am absolutely delighted that we will continue to develop and deliver our three core programmes alongside the BFI, schools and partners across the screen industry over the next three years. Everyone at Into Film is committed to giving children and young people across the UK the opportunity to develop confidence, creativity and future career skills through storytelling, moving image and creative media.

We now work with more than two-thirds of UK schools, helping young people engage with storytelling, media literacy and creative technology while opening up pathways into one of the UK’s most exciting and fast-growing industries. By working closely with schools, communities and industry partners across the country, we want every young person, no matter their background or where they live, to have the chance to build skills, tell their own stories and see new possibilities for their future.”

Lucy Kennedy, CEO of National Saturday Club, comments: “We are delighted to be continuing our valued partnership with the BFI, building on three successful years of delivery and growth of the Film&Screen Saturday Club programme. This generous investment will enable many more 13 to 16-year-olds across the UK to develop their filmmaking skills, expand their creative confidence, and discover pathways into the screen industries.

At a time when equitable access to creative education and extracurricular learning opportunities is increasingly vital, this partnership plays an important role in ensuring that young people from all backgrounds and communities can engage critically and creatively with film and screen culture. The UK’s film and screen sector is of enormous cultural and economic significance, and it is essential that the future workforce reflects the breadth of talent, perspectives and lived experiences across the UK. By investing in inclusive, non-formal learning and early creative skills development, we can help ensure that more young people are equipped to thrive within, and contribute to, this dynamic and rapidly evolving industry.”

The three programmes form a pathway to further BFI National Lottery skills programmes, including BFI Film Academy and the recently renewed BFI Skills Clusters across the UK.