Does every child matter?

    0
    2107

    How Labour’s children’s programme has fared and where its future lies

    SEN Magazine: What is the Every Child Matters (ECM) programme and how did it come into being?

    Katherine Runswick-Cole: In 2003, the Government published a Green Paper called Every Child Matters. This was published with their formal response to Lord Laming’s report into the death of Victoria Climbié, a young girl who was abused, and eventually killed by her great aunt and the man with whom they lived.
    The Green Paper focused on:
    •    increasing the focus on supporting families and carers – the most critical influence on children’s lives
    •    ensuring necessary intervention takes place before children reach crisis point and protecting children from falling through the net
    •    addressing the underlying problems identified in the report into the death of Victoria Climbié – weak accountability and poor integration
    •    ensuring that the people working with children are valued, rewarded and trained.
    The Green Paper provoked a broad ranging debate about services for children, young people and families, and there was wide consultation with people working in children’s services, and with parents, children and young people.
    Following the consultation, the Government published Every Child Matters: The next steps, and passed the Children Act 2004, the legislative framework for developing more effective and accessible services focused around the needs of children, young people and families.
    Every child matters: Change for children was published in November 2004 and the website was launched soon afterwards (see below).

    SEN: What are the main aims of the ECM programme?

    KRC: The government’s aim was for every child, whatever their background or circumstances, to have the support they need to meet five outcomes.

    SEN: What are the learning outcomes of ECM?


    KRC:
    The five learning outcomes of the ECM project are:

    •    be healthy
    •    stay safe
    •    enjoy and achieve
    •    make a positive contribution
    •    achieve economic well-being.
    Crucially, the five outcomes are universal ambitions for every child and young person, whatever their background or circumstances.
    The outcomes are intended to be seen as mutually reinforcing. For example, children and young people learn and thrive when they are healthy, safe and engaged, and educational achievement is seen as the most effective route out of poverty.
    A revised framework was published in 2008.

    SEN: How does ECM relate to children with disabilities and SEN?

    KRC: The government saw improving outcomes as involving narrowing the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. The Government, therefore, was particularly focused on improving outcomes for disadvantaged groups, including looked-after children and those with SEN and disabilities.

    SEN: What guidance do schools have for meeting ECM outcomes?

    KRC: The New Relationship with Schools (NRwS) supports schools in their implementation of the ECM agenda. It is intended to help raise standards, introduce priorities, reduce bureaucracy and increase information for parents. On 9 March 2005, the DfES and Ofsted published A New Relationship with Schools: Next steps. This offers further guidance to schools and local authorities.

    SEN: What mechanisms exist to check if ECM outcomes are being met?

    KRC:
    Assessment of schools is closely linked to the ECM agenda and several mechanisms are in place to evaluate schools in relation to the ECM agenda. These include:
    •    Office for Standards in Education Inspections (OfSTED)
    •    the requirement to communicate effectively with parents
    •    the requirement on schools to produce School Improvement Plans (SIPs)
    •    The requirement for schools to self-evaluate for planning, inspection and for the SIP
    •    The requirement for schools to work closely with other agencies.

    SEN: How successfully have schools been able to implement ECM outcomes in practice?

    KRC: A key theme within the ECM agenda is that children’s needs should no longer be met in isolation by a particular agency or institution acting alone. Rather, these should be met by “extended” schools and multi-agency working. This idea is not new and Ainslie et al. (2010) point out that similarities have been drawn with the emergence of the village college movement in the 1920s and the New Community Schools in Scotland from 1998 onwards. However, Ainslie et al. also argue that such approaches pose significant challenges for schools in terms of the level of expectation put upon them and also in terms of the availability of resources, not only relating to capacity but also to capability. There is still uncertainty about what the role and function of the “school” should be.

    However, there is evidence that there has been a rise in before and after school activities (Cummings et al., 2006), although not all schools have been able to rise to the challenge of meeting the ECM agenda whilst struggling in the context of lack of funding and support (Ainslie et al., 2010).

    SEN: How effective has ECM been at helping schools and teachers meet the needs of children with disabilities and SEN?

    KRC: There are several practical and resources driven barriers to enabling disabled children and children with SEN from meeting the ECM outcomes. These include:
    •    SENCOs occupy a key role in the education of children with SEN. However, SENCOs are often overburdened with class teaching and have insufficient time for their SEN role. They have limited say in budget allocation and limited time to manage resources and staff effectively
    •    parents and teachers argue that the number of teaching assistants (TAs) available to support pupils with SEN is low. There is also a significant difficulty in the fact that TAs are often untrained and poorly paid, and this can affect the quality of the education they are able to deliver. This is particularly the case when teachers do not plan for pupils with SEN in their classrooms and expect unqualified TAs to differentiate work for pupils with complex learning needs
    •    disabled pupils have not benefitted from the “extended” schools programme. Disabled children are often not able to access before or after school clubs and activities for disabled children over the age of eleven do not exist. Parents (mothers) of disabled children, therefore, cannot take on paid work and, as this is seen as the route out of poverty for families, this suggests that it will be harder for families with disabled children to work their way out of poverty. Furthermore, parents continue to complain that services are not joined up and, despite the drive to facilitate parent professional working, the evidence from our project shows parents continue to experience difficulties with working with professionals.

    In terms of the Every Child Matters outcomes themselves, the nature of these has also been questioned.

    The outcomes focus on children’s future potential and this has been criticized for failing to see children as “beings” but instead focusing on them as “becomings”. Children are framed as valuable for their future productivity rather than valuing childhood in its own right within the ECM outcomes.

    Sloper et al. (2009) argue that, although the ECM framework is relevant to disabled children, the level of achievement expected or desired in each of the outcomes is often different for disabled children, but that this is not made explicit. For some disabled children, for example, achieving independence is not what they desire and it is important to recognize that not achieving that outcome does not represent a poor outcome for that child. Sloper et al. (2009) suggest that the ECM outcomes must find a way of valuing the achievements of all children.

    Although the Labour Government intended the outcomes to be mutually reinforcing, Sloper et al. suggest that there is also an implicit hierarchical structure within the outcomes. Sloper also points out that the ability to communicate is assumed within the outcomes and yet for disabled children this may not be the case. Communication is a fundamental outcome that underpins all the others. The absence of an outcome acknowledging the importance of communication is viewed as a crucial omission from the ECM agenda.

    SEN: How successful has the ECM programme been at achieving its aims?

    KRC: The death of baby Peter in Haringey in 2009 echoes the death of Victoria Climbié and reveals that challenges in the effective provision of children’s services remain.

    There has been limited success in the extended schools programme and the focus on the wellbeing of the child as a whole is to be welcomed.

    SEN: What do you see as the future for ECM?

    KRC: It is difficult to say in the early days of the new government, but there are some signs of a move away from a focus on the wellbeing of the whole child, not least in the re-branding of the Department for Children, Schools and Families as the Department for Education. This suggests a regressive step in terms of multi-agency working.

    The financial crisis will also impact significantly on the lives of disabled children. Changes in the way Disability Living Allowance is awarded may impact disproportionately on families of disabled children who are already benefit-dependent. The change in policy to move single mothers of children over the age of five off income support and onto job seekers allowance will also challenge some families of disabled children.

    Further information

    Dr Katherine Runswick-Cole is a researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU).  She has published extensively in the area of disability, children and family, and was Research Fellow for the MMU project Does Every Child Matter, post-Blair? The interconnections of disabled childhoods:
    www.rihsc.mmu.ac.uk/postblairproject

    Every child matters: Change for children:
    www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters

    The ECM revised framework can be downloaded from:
    http://publications.education.gov.uk

    The New Relationship with Schools (NRwS):
    www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/newrelationship

    A New Relationship with Schools: Next steps can be downloaded from:
    http://publications.education.gov.uk

    Every Disabled Child Matters:
    www.edcm.org.uk

    References

    Ainslie, S., Foster, R., Groves, J., Grime, K., Straker, K. and Woolhouse, C. (2010) Making children count: an exploration of the implementation of the Every Child Matters agenda, Education 3-13, 38 (1): 23 — 38

    Cummings, C., Dyson, A., Papps, I., Pearson, D., Raffo, C., Tiplady, L. and Todd, L (2006) Evaluation of the Full-Service Extended Schools initiative, second year, thematic papers. DfES Research Report. Manchester: UK: Univ. of Manchester.

    Sloper, T., Bryony, B. and Rabiee, P. (2009) Every Child Matters Outomes: What do they mean for disabled children and young people? Children & Society, 23 (4): 25-278.

    SEN Magazine
    Author: SEN Magazine

    + posts

    LEAVE A REPLY

    Please enter your comment!
    Please enter your name here