I spent Saturday in a posh hotel with a mix of young people, parents, practitioners and policy experts in Whitehall looking at the Children’s Plan.
I have to admit to being slightly surprised about the event happening; after all, the cynic in me said, the plan has already been published so why hold another consultation event?
But, as I thought about it, there seemed to be something rather refreshing about returning to those of us who’d provided input into the plan to check out our reaction to what the government had made of it; and as it happened to seek our views on the implementation of the strategy.
By fortune, rather than design, the London group – there were parallel sessions being run in Portsmouth, Birmingham and Leeds – focused on health (including drug and alcohol harms) in the morning. We went on to look at the government’s plans for play in the afternoon.
Health
I was was able make the point – to Health Minister, Ann Keen – that while the emphasis that Ministers and officials made on prevention was more than welcome, they face a challenge in redirecting resources.
The group I was working with included a school nurse, a trainee teacher, a play worker, a child minder, a home schooling mother, and two young(ish) people. Our discussion on health outcomes ended up with a slogan, “ASK for health”; which stood for Attitudes, Skills, and Knowledge. We used cooking as a proxy for others elements of health education which led us to agreement that what we wanted to see was a bold, structured, curriculum across a range of settings where attitudes and skills were as critical as knowledge.
There was also a strong sense that the relationship between the adults that deliver health education and children and young people needs to be a strong one, particularly when the issues that are dealt with are sensitive. Many of these points were echoed by other groups at the event.
Play
Similarly, our group wanted our children’s play to have similar elements to our own most precious memories of playing as children; outdoor, involving nature (trees, streams, digging), allowing imaginative as well as physical play, challenging but safe.
We also insisted that facilities like toilets, places for adults to sit, have picnics and so on would also be welcome. There was a degree of positive feeling that schools could be a good place to build new play areas, particularly as extended schools develop. Our group said that while we liked the idea of children playing in the street we recognised that others where we lived would be less keen.
Overall
In the final session we were able to reflect on the implementation of the strategy, and again there was remarkable unanimity that the strategy was a good one, but there will be struggles in implementing it; particularly if there’s an expectation of things happening quickly. I made the point that it was heartening to have heard that many local authorities are interested in PSA 14 but my experience was that it will take time for these things to become internalised.
I relayed a conversation that I’d recently been had the TellUs survey where my contact, who works for a local authority, told me that it was a difficult sell to get schools to take part because they don’t see any individual benefit from the process – because all the information is collated at the local authority level. What had struck me about this was that there are organisations who do survey work through schools that are able to provide very specific feedback while still ensuring anonymity for pupils. Communities that Care and the SHEU came to mind, perhaps they could give Ofsted a few tips!
Talking to one of the senior civil servants at the event, Tom Jeffery, it was clear that what we said did make an impression and there’s every chance they’ll use our ideas. That said, it was a bit disappointing that the Ministers didn’t stick around for the whole day, and I think that they and the civil servants could have usefully joined the conversations at some points (rather than just listening in).
Who knows, maybe next time?
Filed under: Government , building brighter futures, Children's Plan, DCSF
