Do you feel your family and your children are at the heart of what the goverment does?

[ale233]

I haven't been on Mumsnet for some time but used to be on all the time when I was expecting my children!! I am a mature student, training to be a teacher and I am doing some research into the government's claims that children, young people and families are at the heart of what they do. The Children's Plan (published 2 years ago) plans to make England the best place for children and young people to grow up. It claims to improve parents ability to balance work and family life, allow children to play and learn whilst staying safe and ensure each child reaches their potential. By 2010 the plan aims to eradicate child poverty, reduce obesity and significantly reduce the number of children convicted of criminal offences.
have changes been made within your children's school and communities? Has help for parents and carers improved? and is there signs of poverty and obesity reducing as a result of this plan? Any views/comments would be greatly appreciated and would really help me in my research. Thanks for your time, Anna.x

Yes, just a few things off the top of my head.

After and before school clubs
much more emphasis on growing your own food / healthy eating
signposting by the school to childminders / parent support / docs, etc
parents' meetings / support through extended services
MUCH easier access to the children's mental health services
CAF meetings held at school with interested parties to talk about child with probs (+ follow up TAC meetings)
more rigorous child protection training at school
more TA support in schools
introduction of the play curriculum for early years, plus smoother transition to Y1 (continuing play to an extent)
curriculum focussed on co-operation and working together
teachers ancouraged to take the curriculum outside the classroom
No KS1 SAT test reporting / science KS2 - instead teacher assessment, which is much more useful for everyone
growth in extra-curricular activities
national strategy to provide links for PE - outside agencies coming in to take exciting PE lessons such as streetdance
creative curriculum - burn those worksheets!

(I do think a lot more could be done with early intervention therapy for the behaviourly challenged!! Also think the role of the headteacher has grown out of all proportion and this hasn't been recognised.)

That's all I can think of for now.... of course I could name some BAD things too!!!

Thanks for your reply, please name bad things as well. Makes research and writing much more interesting!!!!!!

The MILLIONS of £££££ spent on wishy washy framework for lit and numeracy (soon to be defunct after only a couple of years)
MILLIONS of ££££ spent on the glossy 'Teachers' magazine that I have NEVER asked to receive and promptly put in the bin
Teachers TV (I think that's taking your job a little too seriously!!!)
the MILLIONS of ££££ spent on 'Healthy Schools' / 'Sustainable Schools' - jobs for the boys (and all the other silly initiative that we have to fill in) Money could have been saved just by telling us what to do - it would have been much more simple IMHO!
The secondary school curriculum (I'm a primary teacher, but dc is in Y13 and has been through the lot - GCSE English texts, AS geography, I could go on ....) Doesn't seem as if the really good creative teaching has been allowed to filter through to some secondary subjects - not the teachers' fault
GTC
Ofsted CONTINUALLY changing goal posts. All VERY frustrating
Performance management
Lack of nationally implemented support and training service for TAs (in my county doesn't exist - next county is brilliant)
Inequality in music provision (some counties free, others have to pay - wider opp scheme very expensive for school to buy into)
children worth different amounts in different counties - vast amounts pumped into urban areas
parental choice has created sink schools (in some counties keeping grammars has done same thing - look at kent)
Helicopter parents - parents 'knowing' more than teachers and having the gall to make comments about what you're doing wrong (blame a lot of this on the media and info available on the internet)
Parents believing their children rather than the adult and arguing their case.
Tutoring for the 11+ - skews results and only available to the more wealthy
Tutoring for infants - they have been at school for six hours already for goodness sake!
Parents not reading with children
Demands for extra homework when reading will suffice (infants, Y3/4)
The spelling test misunderstanding - if a child gets 10/10 it does not mean they know the spellings!
Jolly jolly phonics
the scary issue of online reporting - we need to be very careful on this one - don't know much about it yet
Boys' writing - little boys often don't like writing and naturally get better at it in mid-junior - why stress about the young boys writing long stories, as long as we're paving the way for future success?
The media continously rambling on about poor standards in a completely misinformed way (particularly papers like the Daily Mail - read by many mums) Contrary to media hype, nearly all children who 'fail to reach expected standards' in Y6 CAN READ!!!
The arduous process for applying for a statement of educational needs - lack of central administration (and the even more arduous process of appeal)
Manky school buildings.

But I love love love my interactive white board!!!!

What the Easter Bunny said with knobs on!

Fab!!!! Thanks Easter Bunny.xx

There are a couple of things that worry me about the Tory party policy - can see squillions being wasted here (this has nothing to do with my politics - just worries about what will happen) I think the problem is that political parties want to make radical changes within a 5 year period, and, because of this, changes are implemented before they are fully piloted / considered.

''We will reform the National Curriculum so that it is more challenging and based on evidence about what knowledge can be mastered by children at different ages. We will ensure that the primary curriculum is organised around subjects like Maths, Science and History. We will encourage setting so those who are struggling get extra help''
The 2010 curriculum has just been sent to schools - this is NOT subject based. How many £££££ will be spend on consultations, etc to make the new Tory model?

''Drawing on the experience of the Swedish
school reforms and the charter school
movement in the USA, we will break down
barriers to entry so that any good education
provider can set up a new Academy school ?
free, non-selective, high-quality state schools that are open to all. These new Academies will be run by charities, parent and teacher groups,trusts, voluntary groups and co-operatives. Our schools revolution will create a new generation of good small schools with high standards of discipline.''
funding? governance? private sponsorship? choice of representatives? moderation? control?

''give every existing school
the chance to achieve Academy status,
with ?outstanding? schools pre-approved, and
extend the Academy programme to primary
schools. And we will make sure Academies
have the vital freedoms that help make them
so successful in the first place.''
creation of even more sink schools - and all the other probs that go along with it.

Tories policies are all the same though. I'm all right so you should be too unless you can't afford it then tough. Labour is no better, they just have a different demographic group to aim at.

Until the government, who ever is incharge, realises that you can't quantify the work that goes on in education (or health, police etc) by a number or a ticky box the status quo will continue. When you see a great teacher in action, you know it. There might be things you can list that makes them good but the rest is just a feeling of seeing it in action. Central government and their associated 'groups' hate this because they can't create a pamphlet, book, scheme of work to go with it. the best teaching i have ever done is where I said, 'sod this new directive' and hoped no-one from the LEA happened to be doing a tour around the school.

The easter bunny is right about the amount of money that is wasted on new initiatives (don't get me started on healthy schools or eco-schools). It would make Bill Gates blush. Many have nothing to do with actually educating children but mean more people can be employed to make the glossy brochures.

Does anyone remember the literacy and numeracy planning software fiasco? We all got trained on it before the software was finished because it was running behind schedule! So the LEA trainers talked about what it might look like. Then we had the actual training on it. Doubling costs in one fell swoop and then to my knowledge, nobody used it. It was crap. A total waste of money. Hey, what's a few tens of millions when your wasting billions?

I watched an interview with Ed Balls were he 'reassured' everyone that we would not return to the pre National Curriculum topic based teaching. Although it could be argued there was a lack of structure and opportunities for routine assessment, was it not better than the rigid uninspiring current National Curriculum. A move towards the new 'Creative Curriculum'; if delivered effectively should give teachers more control over what and how they teach. How do other people feel about the child centered teaching approach which has been suggested?

I really like the child-centred teaching approach. I think the children learn better if they decide what they are going to learn and we plan ahead from their suggestions. For instance, this half term, we are basing all our lit and creative curriculum (Y2) on a book. My colleague and I had a few ideas beforehand, but, after reading the book to the children, they came out with all our ideas and more! Then we wrote our medium term plans.

We find we have to be fairly flexible during the week, as the children often have ideas of something extra they want to find out about. So, it is a bit different - the old 'topic based teaching' was full of teachers' tenuous links between subjects - now, we will be working to cover all parts of the national curriculum through a focus idea, letting the children lead the way.

The new 2010 curriculum (out 2 weeks ago) will enable us to be more flexible, and to link disciplines within our ....... (fill in word - topic, theme, focus idea?!) as long as there is careful monitoring throughout the school that skills are progressing and all elements of the curriculum are being taught.

Thanks again for your input and time.x

The Head of dd's school is very enthusiastic about the new curriculum. BUT - she says she can foresee disaster in some schools. Inadequate preparation and insufficient monitoring could lead to the old problem of some teachers not fulfilling their responsibilities. The National Curriculum was brought in for a purpose!

There is also the point that exciting topics are all very well, but the cornerstone of primary education is teaching children to read and write. Without these absolute basic skills they ain't going to be accessing nowt.

sorry, i meant to say halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate by 2020!

ha ha ha.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Google "Badman and Balls"

You'll not find a home educator in the country (well, maybe just one) who thinks that the government has children and families at the heart of what they do. Undermining the institution of the family, oh yeah. Disregarding the rights of children and refusing to listen to children - bring it on. Treating parents who want to educate their children at home as guilty (of neglect, child abuse, you name it - anything for a good headline) until proven innocent - that's the ticket.

I am visualising Ed Balls having his Portillo moment in a few weeks SO HARD I'm getting eye strain.

...eer..NO, or is this a trick question?
How naive does one have to be to believe that
".. your family and your children are at the heart of what the goverment does?"
Such 'hearts and minds' nonsense is not working too well in distant sunny lands, is it, nor is it working here.
The electoral platforms with bells and whistles and warm apple pies are there to run on, not stand on, once the election is won.
It all boils down to bread and circuses, Cicero nailed the golden 'tool' of any government ever so eloquently. It works. It always has and always will.
Ed Balls belongs to the circuses of course, oh how one wishes for the Arena and few wild beasts.....