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Ed Balls launches plan for children

DEPARTMENT FOR CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES News Release (2007/0235) issued by The Government News Network on 11 December 2007

WORLD CLASS AMBITIONS FOR ALL CHILDREN - 2020 GOALS OUTLINED - £1 BILLION ALLOCATED TO FUND THE PLAN OVER THE NEXT THREE YEARS

BETTER SUPPORT FOR PARENTS AND FAMILIES CENTRAL TO THE PLAN

NEW ERA FOR KIDS' PLAY AND POSITIVE ACTIVITIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE - FREE CHILDCARE FOR TWO YEAR OLDS FROM DEPRIVED COMMUNITIES - OVERHAUL OF THE PRIMARY CURRICULUM

Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls today launched the 'Children's Plan', a long term vision to improve schools and a step-change in the way parents and families are supported to deal with the new challenges faced by young people in the 21st century.

Building on a decade of reform and results, and responding directly to parents and young people's concerns, the Children's Plan:

* strengthens support for all families including during the formative early years of their children's lives;

* takes the next steps in achieving world class schools;

* seeks a step-change in parents involvement in their child's learning;

* helps to make sure that young people have exciting things to do outside school, and more places for children to play.

The key announcements are that:

* £225m will be allocated over the next three years to build or upgrade more than 3,500 playgrounds and set up 30 new supervised adventure playgrounds, designed for the 8-13 age group, in deprived communities;

* £160m will be allocated to improve the quality and range of places for young people to go and things for them to do. This could mean either 50 new state-of-the-art youth centres could be built, or 500 refurbished, or alternatively 2000 smaller scale centres or mobile units. These centres will contain a range of positive activities for young people including sport, music, drama, art facilities etc;

* 20,000 two year olds from disadvantaged families will receive free childcare, building on the current childcare offer to all three and four year olds;

* the Children's Plan kick-starts a root and branch review of the primary level curriculum to ease the transition from early years into school, to create an even sharper focus on maths and English and to give teachers more flexibility in the school day. Sir Jim Rose, whose groundbreaking review placed the teaching of synthetic phonics as the key to literacy, will lead the review;

* schools in the 21st century should be central to their communities, designed differently and encouraged to make more effective links with the NHS and other services. Child health services, social care, advice, welfare services and police will where possible be located on the same sites, making services more integrated and more convenient for children and their families;

* the Children's Plan sets out a package of measures to support families and help parents take a more active role in their children's education;

The Children's Plan sets out a series of goals for what we should and can achieve for children by 2020. These include:

* every child ready for success in school, with at least 90% of children developing well across all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage profile by age 5;

* every child ready for secondary school, with at least 90% of children reaching at or above expected levels in English and maths by age 11;

* every young person with the skills for adult life and further study, with at least 90% achieving the equivalent of five higher level GCSEs by age 19; and at least 70% achieving the equivalent of two A-levels by age 19;

* reaffirming the Government's pledge to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020.

The Children's Plan sets out a wide range of specific policies to help achieve these ambitions.

Children should be happy, healthy and safe from harm: parents and children report that investing in activities, facilities and parks for children and young people was amongst the most important things Government could do to help them:

* £225m will be invested so up to 3,500 playgrounds can be rebuilt or renewed and 30 new supervised adventure playgrounds, designed for the 8-13 age group, can be built in deprived communities;

* we want to move away from the "No Ball Games" culture of the past so that public spaces in residential areas are more child friendly. Local authority planning guidance will help to prioritise 'a world designed for the needs of young people';

* encourage local authorities to create more 20mph speed limit zones, particularly around play parks. Road safety was amongst the top issues that parents say is important to them;

* all children, no matter where they live or their background, will have opportunities to get involved in high quality cultural activities in and out of school;

* £160m will be allocated to improve the quality and range of places for young people to go and things for them to do. This could mean either 50 new state-of-the-art youth centres could be built, or 500 refurbished, or alternatively 2000 smaller scale centres or mobile units. These centres will contain a range of positive activities for young people including sport, music, drama, art facilities etc;

* working with the NHS and other partners, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and Department of Health will publish a Child Health Strategy in Spring 2008;

* because mental wellbeing is crucial to child development, Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services will be reviewed to identify whether specialist support services can be improved for the growing number of children and young people with mental health needs;

* an independent assessment will be commissioned to understand the impact of the commercial world on children's wellbeing;

* because the majority of accidents involving children take place in the home, £18m over the next three years will be invested in new home safety equipment including stair gates and fire alarms and targeted at the most vulnerable families;

* an action plan to be published in 2008 will tackle housing overcrowding and prioritise children's needs in housing decisions, especially the need to stay close to services like schools.

New support for parents and families: partnership with parents is a unifying theme of the Children's Plan. Early years settings, primary and secondary schools have done much in recent years to work with parents but the Plan seeks a step-change in the involvement of parents in their child's learning and in more general support to parents and families.

* the Government will invest £100m to extend the offer of free childcare places to 20,000 of the most disadvantaged two year olds, building on the current childcare offer to all three and four year olds;

* ambitious changes to help parents stay in touch with teachers throughout their child's school life, covering issues from progress in the classroom to behaviour, attendance and events in the school calendar. Examples include ensuring that parents are contacted by a staff member at school before their child starts at the school; personal tutors, who know the child in the round, will act as the main contact for parents; schools parents councils to ensure that parents' preferences are heard;

* £30m will be spent to provide more family learning to help parents and carers develop skills and learn with their children in schools;

* because up to a fifth of families have children identified as having a special educational need, there will be a greater priority placed on raising expectations that these children will succeed and additional help for parents to be fully engaged in their education. The Children's Plan contains a package of measures - costing £18m - to improve teacher training, enhance the role for school SEN co-ordinators and better data to identify whether SEN pupils are progressing. A key principle of the Children's Plan is that intervening early and working in partnership with families should be the objective for schools and other agencies to support children. Ofsted will be asked to lead a full review into the quality of special education needs provision, to start in 2009;

* there is evidence that children with summer birthdays have poorer educational outcomes than those born in the autumn, so the Government will ask Sir Jim Rose in his review of the primary curriculum to look at how we can address this by improving the curriculum and teaching for these children and whether we should create more flexibility in school start dates;

* there will be a greater expectation that public services engage both the father and the mother in decisions about their child;

* the Government will embark on new work to look at how the system can better support parents and their children during and after family breakdown;

* more will be done to provide advice, information and guidance to parents and families about their child's development. This will include extending the principle behind the "red book" so that parents can track their child's development through early years and into primary school. And the development of parent-held progress records so that parents can track their child's progress in maths, English, languages, sport, music and other school activities.

Creating world class schools for all: raising school standards will remain the number one priority for the DCSF. The Children's Plan contains a number of measures that represent the next phase of the Government's drive to create world class standards.

* a root and branch review of the primary level curriculum to help smooth the transition from early years, free up space in the school day for more time on the three Rs and time for a foreign language. The review will consider how best to ensure a smooth transition from play-based learning in the early years into school, particularly for summer born children. Sir Jim Rose will lead the review;

* building on the £144m already allocated to fund the Every Child A Reader and Every Child Counts programmes, £25m will be allocated to fund the Every Child A Writer scheme to offer intensive one-to-one coaching in areas of writing that children find hard to master;

* that children should be taught according to their "stage not age", including expanding the "testing when ready" assessment method nationally. Whilst national testing will remain, this could lead to an end to the key stage tests in 2009 but only if the pilot sites have proven to work and the system has been rigorously evaluated;

* £18m will be invested to provide additional support for specific groups of children with special educational needs and disabilities;

* to ensure the steps to support special educational needs are working effectively, Ofsted will be asked to lead a full review into the quality of special education needs provision, to start in 2009;

* the Government will invest £26.5m on piloting new forms of teaching children that have been excluded from school, including piloting the concept of Studio Schools, which specialise in work-based learning and vocational training;

* schools in the 21st century should strive for educational excellence but should work in partnership with other agencies to actively contribute to all aspects of children's lives such as health and wellbeing, safety and care. This will mean opening facilities to the wider community and where possible will mean children's services such as health, child & adolescent mental health services, social care, welfare services, being based on school sites. Guidance will be published for Building Schools for the Future to ensure that schools are designed with other services co-located with them;

* an ambition that all new school buildings to be zero carbon by 2016.

Developing a world class workforce: one of the most important factors in delivering our aspirations for children is a world class workforce. So we will invest £117m in the early years' workforce to fund:

* supply cover so early years workers can take part in continuing professional development;

* a boost to the Graduate Leader Fund so that every full daycare setting will be led by a graduate by 2015, with two graduates in deprived areas or where quality needs significant improvement;

We already have many teachers and headteachers who are among the best in the world. However, to deliver a teaching workforce and a new generation of headteachers which is consistently world class we will allocate £44m over the next three years to:

* make teaching a Masters-level profession, with all new teachers able to study for a Masters-level qualification through a focus on continued professional development;

* establish a Transition to Teaching programme to attract more people with science, technology and engineering backgrounds into teaching;

* extend the Future Leaders programme which places people with proven leadership credentials into urban schools

A package of measures to tackle risky behaviour: early teenage years and adolescence can expose young people to risks and where they fail to make informed or sensible choices, they can put their health and future at risk.

* a youth alcohol action plan will be published in the Spring 2008, around the same time as the new drugs strategy which will improve alcohol education in schools and consider the case for further action on alcohol advertising;

* review best practice in effective sex and relationship education and how it is delivered in schools;

* working with the Home Office, £66m to target those young people most at risk of offending;

* piloting a restorative approach to youth offenders;

* a Green Paper in Spring 2008 to look at what happens when young offenders leave custody on how to improve the education they receive in custody.

Ed Balls said:

"Our aim is to make this country the best place in the world for our children and young people to grow up.

"For most children, 2007 is a great time to be a child. Most children are happy, most are achieving to a higher level than ever before, enjoying better health, more opportunities to travel, to engage in sport or cultural activities than was the case for any previous generation.

"We also need to recognise that the world is changing rapidly, presenting new and exciting opportunities, but also risks and challenges, and it is hard for families to strike the right balance. New technology and the internet offer countless exciting opportunities, but the bewildering pace of change leaves many parents nervous.

"Changing employment patterns mean mothers and fathers can pursue rewarding careers, but face challenges in balancing work and family life. Parents regret that their children don't play independently outside as they did when they were young, but worry about safety if they do. Families are more aware of how to pursue healthy lifestyles, yet childhood obesity is on the rise.

"Our job is to intervene early to prevent children engaging in risky behaviours like drug taking or binge drinking, disengaging from education or getting into crime.

"The creation of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and this Children's Plan, is the Government's response to these challenges. It sets out our commitments for how we are going to ensure that by 2020, this country isn't just a good place to be a child but the best place in the world to grow up. That has to be our aspiration.

"The Children's Plan marks the beginning of a new relationship in which Government commits to working with families and their children and making sure that their needs come first. This isn't about nanny-state intervention or telling parents what to do. We know that Government doesn't bring up children, families do.

"Common sense and every teacher in every classroom tell us that what happens outside school hours and parents' involvement in children's education are both vital to their progress.

"We have been listening to parents, teachers, professionals and children and young people and the Children's Plan responds to their concerns.

"Over the next ten years I believe this plan will herald a radical change in the range of positive activities for our young people and a revolution in the way parents are involved in their child's education."

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. To help shape the Children's Plan the DCSF has also analysed more than 150 national and international research studies and surveys to develop a picture of what works well and what more needs to be done to ensure all children have a happy childhood.

2. The new announcements in the Children's Plan are backed by £1 billion of planned spending over the next three financial years (2008/09 - 20010/11). This money has been allocated from the Department's Comprehensive Spending Review confirmed in the Chancellor's Pre Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review Statement on 9 October 2007. All figures in the press release are presented as over three years except for the £160m youth fund for positive activities, which is over two years.

There is new footage today on the Department's YouTube site: http://uk.youtube.com/dcsf

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