Joining up school services

On the 19th of February, I attended the Launch of the Progress School Governors Network in Westminster, with the Rt Hon Ed Balls as the speaker. He spoke a lot about issues that we have heard before, but that didn’t make them any less poignant.

His focus was on the role of schools in the wider community, and the need for schools to be better linked with children services and health services. The thinking is that the schools should be the early warning indicator, and then schools need to be able to engage with Social Services and the Housing Association. I totally agree with this idea in principle, but understand that it may be difficult to work in practice.

He believed that this emphasis on joining up these support services is fundamental to tackling barriers to children reaching their potential. The Governing bodies, therefore, need to ensure that the school is equipped for this to happen.

His other key point was about raising the education age to 18 – either through school, college, apprenticeships or work based training, in order to break the link between poverty and opportunity. He explained that vocational schemes should give an opportunity to everyone, and remove the 2 tier system that currently operates.

I agree that both joining up schools with other local services, and creating better educational opportunities for all children through different vocational schemes, is really important to improve lives of children in this country. And I really hope that the DCSF can achieve these goals, not only to help every individual child to reach their potential, but because more skilled young people entering the workforce will ultimately contribute immensely to the success of the UK economy.