Every Child Matters

EYFS: where to start

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:21:00 +0100

In September 2008 the new Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework will become statutory for all early years care and education providers in Ofsted registered settings attended by children from birth to five years of age. In theory, what a sensible move to create a framework that replaces the three previous early years documents – Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage, Birth to Three Matters and National Standards for Under 8s Daycare and Childminding.

Every Child Matters: challenges and opportunities for CPD

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:58 +0100

As the Every Child Matters agenda gathers momentum and schools come to terms with new concepts such as ‘wraparound provision’ and ‘extended schools’, and a rapidly expanded workforce, CPD coordinators need to take a fresh look at what might be the needs of such a disparate workforce as well as those who may have intermittent contact with the school or pupils with particular needs. What (new) skills and competences do different workers need? What type of preparation would be most effective? What might be the progression and professional accreditation routes?

SEN students' views on ECM outcomes

scameron — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:57 +0100

A learning project in two Cornish comprehensive schools shows how the views of students with SEN can be listened to and acted on. The project shows both similarities in the positive and negative experiences of students with SEN in the two schools as well as institutional differences. The project involved SEN students acting as researchers to help improve their own learning experiences.

Project context

read more

Why SENCOs need to understand and use the Common Assessment Framework

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:51 +0100

Following the Children’s Act 2004 every local authority should now have reorganised its services for children and young people, merging elements of social care with education and promoting closer links to health and other relevant services.

The risk of any child failing to achieve one or more of the five Every Child Matters outcomes should now be a key indicator of vulnerability that all services, including education, will use to determine the need for specialist intervention.

read more

Enhancing the contribution of business and finance staff through ECM

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:50 +0100
How do you determine what makes a successful school? In the current climate of league tables there is one immediate way to see if your school is successful and that is to see how students’ levels of attainment or value added measures compare with other schools. At some point during the school year a member of the senior leadership team will take the teaching staff through the school’s results. When I was a middle leader there were days when I would bask in the rosy glow of my faculty’s results.
read more

A framework to support self-evaluation of SEN provision

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:49 +0100
The Special Educational Needs/Learning Difficulties and Disabilities Self-Evaluation Framework, which we reproduce below, has been developed by the DCSF to support local authorities (LAs) in reviewing and evaluating strategy, services and provision for children and young people with SEN and LDD.

It has been designed so that local authorities can benchmark and evaluate their own progress and performance, and use this information to identify areas for further development. The framework has been piloted and updated following feedback.

read more

The role of the SENCO in improving ECM outcomes

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:49 +0100
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) along with the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) are working together to enhance the SENCO role, enabling them to be a member of the senior leadership team. The recent findings of the Independent Study into School Leadership indicated that only 16% of SENCOs were members of the senior leadership team. In addition, as a result of the extended school initiative, some SENCOs were becoming inclusion managers, accountable to the director for ECM in school.

read more

Every Child Matters? Disabled children not included

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:48 +0100
Priorities and Perceptions of Disabled Children and Young People and their Parents Regarding Outcomes from Support Services (for further details see p9) is essential reading for anyone who provides to children who are disabled or who have learning difficulties. It puts the issues for disabled pupils and their parents very clearly in perspective and will prove a useful tool in looking at how schools and services can interpret the ECM agenda.

read more

Embracing Every Child Matters for inspection

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:46 +0100
Many primary headteachers have successfully started to integrate the key outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda into the philosophy, culture and curriculum of their schools. It is important that primary schools show how the ECM agenda supports school improvement and that this is carefully outlined in school documents, especially the SEF and the school development/improvement plan. With regard to the specific aspects of the ECM agenda, primary schools should be able to show how they are supporting the five key outcomes.

Be healthy

read more

Every Child Matters - environmental wellbeing

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:38 +0100
A new report from the Sustainable Development Commission entitled Every Child’s Future Matters looks at the contribution sustainable development can make to the successful delivery of the five outcomes of Every Child Matters (ECM). Sustainable development is a way of thinking about how we organise our lives and work so that we don’t destroy the precious resources of the planet.

Every Child’s Future Matters

read more

Learning to learn: a competency based curriculum

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:38 +0100

Jackie Beere was headteacher of Campion School, a specialist 11-18 language college in Northamptonshire with 1,500 students on roll. She now works as a school improvement partner and L2L consultant for the Campaign for Learning. Campion School has been involved in research into transforming learning since 2001 as part of the Campaign for Learning L2L project. This article reflects how ideas on ‘Learning to Learn’ have developed.

read more

Helping young children understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:32 +0100
School context
Greenford Primary School is a rural school in west Dorset with 125 children on roll, 24 of them in the Foundation class. At Greenford we firmly believe that ‘Every Child Matters’, and try to instil in all our children, from the Foundation Stage onwards, a responsibility to take care of themselves, and to educate them to understand that diet and exercise matter.

read more

How inclusive is your school?

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:23 +0100

How do you evidence the quality of inclusive practice in your school? Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council’s Vision into Practice – Ensuring Every Child Matters materials have been specifically written for school leadership teams working with staff and other stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of what inclusion means to them and what the school’s priorities are for further development. What is important about these materials is that they represent a process – not a checklist.
read more

Teaching global citizenship in school

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:23 +0100

The UN Convention of the rights of the child states that: ‘All children and young people have the right to have a say in the decisions that affect them, to access relevant information and to express their feelings. This statement includes all the children in the world.’
read more

Behind the buzzwords: Personalised learning

ewtemp — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:22 +0100

We have taken a selection of comments from the policy, research and practice communities and looked to see what commonality, if any, exists, in how the term personalised learning is being used and what it means to different groups. This brief survey suggests that we need to exercise caution about putting systems reform before individuals and contexts.
read more

How inclusive is your school?

ewtemp — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:18 +0100

How do you evidence the quality of inclusive practice in your school? Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council’s Vision into Practice – Ensuring Every Child Matters materials have been specifically written for school leadership teams working with staff and other stakeholders to develop a shared understanding of what inclusion means to them and what the school’s priorities are for further development. What is important about these materials is that they represent a process – not a checklist.
read more

Singing your way to PSHE goals

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:17 +0100

One of the best ways for young people to express their creativity, meet new friends and develop a range of skills is to join a choir. This is a pursuit that knows no age, gender, economic, geographical or social boundaries, and one which offers considerable benefits. No specialised equipment is required, costs are low, and choirs for all types of music – jazz, classical, pop, folk, musical theatre – are in operation all over the country. There is wide support for tutors regarding choir networking and special singing ventures.
read more

Every Child Matters: taking disability seriously

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:09 +0100

An important new campaign, Every Disabled Child Matters, was launched by four organisations – Contact a Family, Council for Disabled Children, Mencap and the Special Educational Consortium – at a well attended fringe meeting during the Labour party’s autumn conference. The need for such a campaign is long overdue, reflecting failings in the provision of services for disabled children identified in a report published by the Audit Commission in 2003:
read more

Study suggests changes for contribution of EPs in new children's services

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:09 +0100

For educational psychologists as for SENCOs, the Every Child Matters agenda has many implications for future roles and responsibilities. A recent study for the DfES* examines the views of a range of stakeholders as to the distinctive contribution that educational psychologists (EPs ) can make in the newly established children’s services, where there is an increased emphasis on multi-agency working and on the facilities and barriers that may exist.

Too heavily involved in SEN assessment
read more

Introducing Every Child Matters - routes through the curriculum

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:08 +0100

Every Child Matters encompasses principles that few would argue with as being what all involved with the care and education of young people should strive for. But three years in, are schools succeeding in putting ECM into practice to full effect? This month’s Case in Point investigates.
read more

On course for delivering Every Child Matters

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:08 +0100

Ninestiles School has had notable success in implementing the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda in difficult local circumstances. While that agenda is delivered formally through planned lessons, these are located in a wider school context that promotes high expectations and supports maximum student achievement.
School context

read more

Extended schools: extended childcare

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:59 +0100

Every Child Matters is focused on a need to bring together services for children and young people, and one of the ways in which this can be accomplished is through extending schools, in respect of the times when they are open and by making them open to the whole community in which they are located.
read more

Appropriate and affordable childcare for all

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:57 +0100

Changes to working patterns and family life have affected the way that we raise our children. Research has shown us that children’s life chances are affected by their early experiences. With these two factors in mind, this government has placed a great emphasis on the early years agenda, introducing policies and systems designed to improve the availability of childcare and early education opportunities. Equal Access?
read more

Using national healthy school status to achieve the five outcomes for children

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:56 +0100

The reverberations of Jamie’s School Dinners are still sending minor after-shocks through the education system but the cognoscenti are aware that major changes were afoot well before Jamie met Nora. The Children Act of November 2004 is gradually being implemented and one of its fundamental changes is to amend the systems by which children’s services are inspected at various levels, including schools.
read more

Every Child Matters: how can headteachers lead change?

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:55 +0100

This article describes how a multi-agency group of headteachers, social workers and health practitioners in Bexley designed a new approach to the integrated team working promoted by Every Child Matters.

Services working together
read more

Every Child Matters: the Common Assessment Framework

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:52 +0100

The thinking behind Every Child Matters is not new and it should not mean any radical shifts in policies or drastic changes. It is really about rationalising how we work with pupils and their parents and bringing together all the other agencies that can be used to help.

This is where the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) comes in. The CAF is being introduced in all LEAs between April 2006 and December 2008. You may be familiar with the process because your school may already be piloting it.

read more

Enthusiasm but also concerns about Common Assessment Framework

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:49 +0100

The CAF and LP work are attempting to transform services for children with what a new survey describes as ‘additional needs’ with an emphasis on multi-agency cooperation and collaboration based on a holistic understanding of children’s needs. This study offers a ‘snapshot’ of activity in 12 English areas chosen by the DfES to trial these new processes ahead of the national roll-out. The key research question was ‘What helps or hinders practitioners in implementing common assessment and lead professional work?’
read more

Inclusive education: time for a major review of national policy

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:49 +0100

The Costs of Inclusion (1) research study undertaken by researchers from the University of Cambridge, commissioned and funded by the National Union of Teachers (NUT), was launched in a small blaze of publicity, some of which used unhelpful and inflammatory language (May 2006), but what does the report actually say?

read more

Making justice and care work together

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:46 +0100

The American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg studied the development of young people's moral reasoning, by giving them hypothetical dilemmas and asking what the people in the dilemmas should do, and why. Kohlberg's subjects were generally male. Other researchers – notably Carol Gilligan – presented dilemmas to males and females, and compared the results. The following scenario was used in that kind of research, and the subjects came up with a wide variety of suggestions, which fell into two broad classes.
read more

Boys' barriers to learning and achievement

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:41 +0100

With barriers to boys' learning ranging from a lack of independence prior to starting school, to the perception of many boys that reading is a female province – not forgetting the fact that most boys are significantly less developed linguistically – boys in the early years of schooling already face several major barriers.

Early years
read more

Strategies to ensure that every child matters in your school

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:36 +0100

Many schools will have been involved in the consultation that led to the publication of the government document Every Child Matters: Change for Children in December 2004. Now all schools have the task of ensuring that the aims and objectives enshrined in it are henceforth met in every aspect of school management, leadership and planning.
read more

Supporting looked after learners

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:26 +0100
This guidance is provided for school governors and senior managers. Each section deals with a phase or area in a child’s life where being looked after may require the school’s governing body to consider what action it may need to take. It sets out the key problems and challenges that the governing body may face when considering looked after children.

read more

SEN Reviews

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:26 +0100

The guidance provides a brief consideration of key concepts in effective outreach and the role of special schools operating within frameworks of strategic support. It then outlines clear practical advice on:
read more

Promoting mental health in schools

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:22 +0100

These outcomes are: being healthy; staying safe; enjoying and achieving; making a positive contribution; and economic wellbeing. Although there are inherent challenges in meeting these outcomes, it is not a new insight that mental health concerns must be addressed if schools are to function satisfactorily and if students are to learn and perform effectively.
read more

SENCOs in secure settings

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:20 +0100

Following the Children Act 2004 custodial settings are now drawn into the mainstream of children’s legislation. It is intended that key outcomes for children in the community identified in Every Child Matters should also apply to custodial provision.

read more