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The first section of this paper will describe the child-centred social investment thesis developed by Esping Andersen (2002). This thesis has been a strong influence on UK government educational and child-related policy over the last decade. Some of the resulting current UK policies will be examined, and their success or failure so far will be explored. It is crucial to note that these policies involve the increasing integration of health, welfare and educational resources in the common purpose of increasing children’s social and cognitive capital. This survey will reveal the key trends and drivers that policy makers are currently responding to as they shape children’s lives. Given that steps taken today may well have effects lasting decades, the guiding social, technical and economic assumptions currently made about the future need to be identified and critically examined. Section Two will set these assumptions in the context of major global trends and signals including issues of demographic change in less and least developed world regions, climate change, energy and food security and financial conditions. The key question here will be whether the bases of current policies address the range of possible futures of yesterday or the range of possible futures of today. Section Three will draw on this material to compose a set of issues that are likely to become important to educational decision-making in the next decade