Expansion of primary literacy and numeracy pilots

The DCSF have expanded their flagship literacy and numeracy initiatives:

Every Child a Reader - by 2010/11 this will cover to 30,000 children in 3,000 schools (and 150 local authorities) a year struggling with early reading getting extra support. A recent report from the Institute of Education found that the pilot had been a huge success, with children getting higher than average results for their age. Within Yorkshire & Humber Every Child A Reader is being expanded this year to: Bradford, Kingston Upon Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, Wakefield & Kirklees.

Every Child Counts - being piloted in 21 local authorities from this month and then rolled out over the next two years, so that by 2010/11 30,000 children in 1,900 schools (105 local authorities) will be covered. Within Yorkshire & Humber Every Child Counts will be initially piloted in: Leeds & Bradford.

Every Child a Writer - being piloted in nine local authority areas, a total of 135 schools and 2,500 children, from this month and will be rolled out nationally by 2011 so that it covers over 45,000 children in up to 9,000 schools and 150 local authorities. Despite the improvements in numeracy and literacy over the last decade, writing lags behind early reading improvement rates. No local authorities within Yorkshire & Humber are piloting this initiative.

Every Child Counts, like the established Every Child a Reader programme, focuses on the bottom 5% at Key Stage 1 and will mean that children struggling with early maths are given high quality intensive specialist support from trained teachers.

Transition information sessions evaluation

This report by the DCSF examines the impact of Transition Information Sessions (TIS) which form part of the parenting support core offer within the Extended Schools prospectus, Access to opportunities and services for all. This pilot covered two years, which included 9 LAs in year 1 and a further 11 LAs in the second year.

TIS aim to:
• lay the foundations of effective home-school partnerships;
• give parents information, ideas and an opportunity for discussion about parenting issues, including how to keep their child safe, happy and learning; and
• signpost parents to local and national sources of information, advice and support

Key points:
- Sessions were offered to a cohort of parents with a child entering a new school setting. Session content was shaped by local preference and need but with a focus on how parents can keep their child safe, happy and learning. Session duration was expected to be around one hour with some additional time for informal conversation. All sessions were expected to signpost parents to local and national services that are there to support them and sessions often directly involved such service providers - in planning, delivery and providing materials.
- The key success factors for local strategic planning were reported by local authorities to include; clarity of aims, effective publicity and branding, and strong leadership from the local authority. Local authorities and schools routinely benefited from the lessons learned from year 1.
- Despite the similarities to TIS in year one, a number of characteristics were found to be distinctive to the project in year two. The main ones were identified as follows:
o more defined links with other local programmes and strategies;
o expanded local authority performance management for TIS, such as the requirement for schools to produce action plans or mini-funding bids, to confirm their approach;
o a greater focus on accountability and value for money ;
o more ambitious TIS formats, with a wider view of 'transitions'; and
o positive influences from the TIS capacity-building programme for all local authorities, drawing on a toolkit for sessions and models of delivery developed within the demonstration project, and offered to all local authorities in 2007-08.
- The evaluation showed that schools were at a varied baseline position in developing their extended service core offer, with some already having a wide range of services in place and others making slower progress. The project often coincided with school-level issues that affected the priority of TIS. These included leadership changes and inspection.
- Steps to engage whole local populations were said to include –
o the use of mapping and consultation data to establish levels of need,
o closer work with district or cluster teams to reach deprived local communities; and
o strengthening third sector involvement within local TIS partnerships

- In Yorkshire & Humber Calderdale and Leeds have schools which took part in this pilot.

Positive Leadership at school level

This research by the Audit Commission (which was blogged earlier), explored the external factors to school success, of which 6 "Key Features" were identified. One of which, "Positive Leadership at School Level" is summarised below:

Key points:

- The leadership of individual head teachers is critical in mobilising staff, pupils and the community behind the broader agenda. This level of commitment is variable across schools.

- The NCSL, Ofsted, ECM and workforce remodelling are ensuring schools need to develop schools ability to respond to the wider community needs.

- Schools partnerships with local church or other faith communities; local business or the voluntary sector can also be useful.

- Schools need to set out a clear and individual vision, incorporated within school plans, which sets out the school's role in the local area and how the school will work with the whole range of public services in support of both school and community success.

Examples of schools in Kirklees and Leeds inform the report.

Families at risk - pathfinders annouced

The DCSF have announced the 15 Local Authority pathfinders to pilot the "think family" approach, a 3 year strategy attracting £16million across England.

Within Yorkshire & Humber this includes Leeds Local Authority, who are also one of the 6 Local Authorities to pilot the Extended Family Pathfinder for Young Carers.

First announced in the 10yr. Children's Plan, the Family Pathfinder project has a history:

- Whitehall (Cabinet Office) started a review into families at risk in 2007, with various reports. They created a definition of what was meant by families at risk and gathering background information (click for link)
- The final report of the group resulted in a strategy called "think family" and a framework for how this will look, regarding public service provision.
- The suggestion to move towards pathfinders, to experiment and share results, was seen as the logical next step.

Think family at every stage of the system, taken from Cabinet Office, "think family, improving the life chances of families at risk (for full document click here).

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