explain the role of schools in national policies relating to · explain the role of schools in...
TRANSCRIPT
1
Explain the role of schools in national policies relating to
children, young people and families
Obviously national policies cannot be implemented by government alone. The front
line of education consists of schools, teachers, and support staff, and these are the
people who must ultimately deliver the agreed policy.
School staff can only deliver the governmental policy if they are aware of it, so the
first part of the role that schools play in the dissemination of national policies is to
make staff aware of the new policy or the changes to the old policies. This can be
done through signposting to the relevant websites and documentation, or through
training days.
With this awareness, schools and staff can demonstrate that they know about the
changes by changing the way they work or by adding more 'value' to the way they
teach and support children and their education.
Changes in policy cannot be delivered by individual staff members in isolation.
Policies affect the way in which a school is run, the methods and types of teaching
and support that is available, and overall provision. Some changes are more wide-
ranging than others, and Help Children Achieve More (Every Child Matters), upon
which the Children's Act 2004 was based, was a very big policy change.
2
How schools deliver national policy.
Helping Children Achieve More Previously known as (Every Child Matters).
The Department for Education (DfE) has recently made a key change in replacing
the phrases of 'Every Child Matters' and the 'Five Outcomes' with 'help children
achieve more'.
Background:
In 2003 the Government published a Green Paper called Every Child Matters. This
was published as a response to the report into the death of Victoria Climbié, the
young girl who was horrifically abused and tortured, and eventually killed by her
great aunt and the man with whom they lived.
3
Although Every Child Matters is not mentioned by the current government the five
outcomes still hold true in that schools need to ensure that all children have the
support they need to:
Be healthy Stay safe Enjoy and achieve Make a positive contribution Achieve economic well-being.
Be healthy - that children should be healthy in every possible way, including
physical, mental, emotional, and sexual health. They should be given the
opportunity to live healthy lifestyles, and be given enough information to be
able to choose not to take illegal drugs.
Stay safe - that children should be safe from violence, abuse, neglect,
bullying, and discrimination. They should be cared for, and they should have
both stability and security.
Enjoy and achieve - that children should be made ready for school, and when
they go, they should enjoy attending. They should be able to achieve national
educational standards at all stages of their learning life. They should also be
able to develop their own personal and social abilities, and enjoy recreational
activities.
Make a positive contribution - that children should be involved and
engaged in decision-making and in supporting the local community.
Children should know the difference between negative and positive
behaviour, and should show positive behaviour outside of school as well as
when they attend.
Achieve economic well-being - that children should engage with the
opportunities given them through further education, employment and training
that will enable them to boost their own abilities to provide for themselves as
adults. They should be able to live in good homes where they have access to
transport and material goods, and should be free of low income problems.
4
Extended services - Extended services provided through schools include
access to educational psychologists, clinical psychologists, family support
workers, health mentors, family literacy and numeracy specialists, and speech
and language therapists.
These types of services tend to link in with overarching services provided to pupils
and their families. For example, these might be child care, health and social care,
pupil support, parenting or family support, or ICT facilities.
Developing themselves as the mainstay of community cohesion (and you will
remember from earlier in this unit that this is a concept introduced to schools'
responsibilities as part of government policy), schools should also develop their links
with the local community, including offering the use of some facilities for their use
where appropriate.
The role of schools in national policies, therefore, can be seen as one that delivers
information and awareness around the new policy or policy changes, and that then
goes on to provide the recommended ways of working detailed in the policy, in
collaboration with other agencies that may be governmental or non-governmental
based.