The last time I spoke to Dave McPartlin, it was December 2018 and his school was vying for Christmas Number One.

This time, they’re days away from appearing on the grand final of Britain’s Got Talent.

McPartlin is in the business of making dreams come true. He’s the headteacher of Flakefleet Primary School in Fleetwood, and he and his staff do everything they can to ensure their pupils truly believe that anything is possible.

“Sometimes you have these mottos or ethos statements, and they’re nice but they don’t quite permeate everything in the school. But our motto, ‘Dare to dream’, has done that. If we fancy doing something, we do it. We fire that email off, we might not get a reply but we will at least try, we at least give it a go.”

“We’re trying to get as many of our kids to have these exciting experiences, which will hopefully light a bit of a fire there that will lead to more exciting things,” says McPartlin.

It was in November that the first Dare to Dream list was drawn up in a Flakefleet assembly. Just some of the ideas were reaching the Christmas Number One spot (they lost out to LadBaby’s We Built This City), working with the homeless, finding out what it’s like to be doctor, being up close to a sports car, and, of course, competing on Britain’s Got Talent.

With no expectations, they sent off an application. Fast forward to February and they were stepping on the stage at the BGT auditions. It was then that they had their first taste of success: David Walliams pressed his golden buzzer for them. Something, McPartlin assures me, was never even a consideration. (For the uninitiated, the Golden Buzzer is a fast-track straight to the show’s semi-final...)

“When we went on that stage, we had no idea what to expect,” McPartlin says. “To then get that golden buzzer it was the most unbelievable feeling of my entire life. We didn’t see it coming, we didn’t talk about going through whatsoever, it was just about doing a really rich experience for the kids, doing something they’d always take with them.” 

The school then had a few months to prepare for their semi-final performance. But in a busy primary school, finding a spare hour here and there is easier said than done.

“We had two dinnertime sessions of half an hour each and then two one-hour sessions after school, and that really has been pretty much it. We rehearsed for a final act, too, just in case we got that far.

“We didn’t have any expectations - it’s just that we could never have been able to turn around a performance in a couple of days,” he says.

Rehearsing for the semi-final at the London Apollo was overwhelming, admits McPartlin.

“In the first practice, I was running around in a fairy outfit shouting, ‘Where am I supposed to be? I’ve forgot, I’ve forgot!’ so if I felt like that I know the kids did. But something really magical happened when we did go on stage. Everyone got really excited, they threw themselves into it, and we came off really thrilled by the experience we’d had. It was really special and very moving afterwards,” he says.

Clearly, the judges and viewing public agreed. The all-singing, all-dancing performance to Bonnie Tyler’s I Need a Hero earned them a place in the top three - and persuaded the judges to keep Flakefleet’s dream alive by putting them through to the final.

But what about the rest of the school? There are just 50 children in the choir - a small portion of the school’s body that’s getting five minutes of fame. It’s something McPartlin said he was conscious of.

“It’s like a football team making it to Wembley or something - only a certain number go. But, on Friday, David Walliams turned up on his helicopter, and that was particularly special for everyone.

“The whole school got this incredible experience. He turned up, did this 50-minute assembly, he read to them, he answered questions, he gave us copies of his brand new book that’s not even out for a month. He really, really couldn’t have been any nicer with all the staff and the children. We’ve all had that special experience, that was on the Friday before half term.” 

In the background, behind the big, bright lights of BGT, other Flakefeet pupils are having their dreams come true, too. A quick scroll on the school’s Facebook page and there’s pictures of pupils visiting care homes, going to the circus and holding rats (rather them than me). It’s obvious that the entire school staff are pulling out all the stops to get to every single dream on the list.

And who knows, by Monday, the one that says “Winner of Britain’s Got Talent” might have a giant tick next to it.