Blogs
-
16Jan2013
Local Government’s Role in Education: the way forward in 2013
Posted by Emily McCoy
A week or so into 2013 and the NHS Confederation (the membership body for all organisations that commission and provide NHS services) is calling for more joined up national policy on children’s health, education, social care, justice and wellbeing services . The report calls for a “transformation” in government to address the lack of national policy coordination that could see children falling between services.
Collaborative planning on children’s outcomes has been a trend in local government for many years until recent performance reporting and infrastructure changes (such as the end of Children’s Trusts) gave local authorities the freedom to develop their own partnership and planning arrangements. Couple this with the increased autonomy of schools (alongside localised health commissioning) and the policy (and service) environment for children’s outcomes seems increasingly varied and fragmented.
What does this mean for education and particularly literacy?
David Laws (Minister of State for Schools and the Cabinet Office) talked about the local authority role in education in early December. He acknowledged the authority’s continued accountability for standards but much of his speech focused on issues such as pupil places and school transport. Briefly he touched on the need for local authorities to champion pupils and parents and to facilitate networks of good practice .
We believe that these latter two points are vital if local authorities are to improve the life chances of children living in their area. Local authorities need to bring together data on need (including feedback from children, families and others) and those best placed to reach vulnerable audiences. They can facilitate the joint planning which can most effectively address social issues, including low literacy.
Research has shown that literacy develops, not just in the context of statutory education but within a broader learning ecology of social and cultural influences with the home as the predominant force. We are working with local authorities to better understand the needs of their communities and bring about improved partnerships to increase the availability of literacy support.
Our first local initiative or Literacy Action Hub is delivered by a partnership with Middlesbrough Council. It is involving NHS Teesside, Erimus Housing, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, the Addictive Behaviours Service alongside local schools, Community Learning, and the Library Service and Achievement Team. Literacy is likely to become a standing item for review for the Middlesbrough Partnership Board.
Middlesbrough Council are trailblazing this new approach in addressing low literacy and steering a path through the new policy and public services environment. This offers a model for other authorities adjusting to their changed role in education.
Most read
- A new curriculum, a new definition for literacy?
- Latest overview of adult literacy in the UK
- Local Government’s Role in Education: the way forward in 2013
- Can teaching speaking and listening change behaviour in secondary classes?
- Buzzing about books - using talk and peer recommendation to hook pupils into reading
Blogs by the same author
- Can we address poverty by focusing on literacy? Frank Field MP thinks so. in Blogs by Emily McCoy
- Partners and volunteers – the heart of our work to improve lives in Rochdale in Blogs by Emily McCoy
- The time is now: get literacy on the agenda of your child poverty partnership in Blogs by Emily McCoy
- Involving communities in literacy: an opportunity for local areas to improve life chances in Blogs by Emily McCoy
- Literacy at a local level: the impact of cuts, restructures and Big Society in Blogs by Emily McCoy
Leave a comment
You must login or register before you can post comments.