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What is Every Child Matters about?
This chapter will cover:
- the concept, principles and aims of Every Child Matters;
- the opportunities and challenges that Every Child Matters offers;
- recent research findings on how schools are implementing the ECM agenda.
The concept of Every Child Matters
The concept of Every Child Matters is to protect, nurture and improve the life chances of children and young people, in particular those of vulnerable children. A holistic approach is recommended, whereby a childās well-being, in addition to their learning, is considered. Every Child Matters is about improving the life chances of all children and young people, from birth to 19, reducing inequalities and helping them to achieve better outcomes.
The principles of Every Child Matters
Ten principles underpin the governmentās Every Child Matters: Change for Children initiative:
- Children and young people to fulfil their optimum potential.
- Early intervention and prevention through improved service provision.
- Safeguarding and protecting children from harm, neglect and poverty.
- A well-trained, skilled, knowledgeable and flexible childrenās workforce.
- Improving information sharing between agencies.
- Better-coordinated joined-up integrated front-line services.
- Greater accountability ā impact of provision on outcomes for children and young people.
- Children to voice their views and inform decision making in relation to personalised services and personalised learning.
- Safer communities providing recreational and voluntary activities for children and young people to participate in.
- Improved access to advice, information and services for parents, carers and families on positive parenting, family learning, childcare, adoption and fostering.
The aims of Every Child Matters
The overall aim of the government is to ensure that every child and young person has the chance to fulfil their potential by reducing levels of educational failure, ill health, substance misuse, teenage pregnancy, abuse and neglect, crime and anti-social behaviour among children and young people. The governmentās aim is for every child, whatever their background or circumstances, to have the support they need to:
- be healthy: enjoying good physical and mental health and having a healthy lifestyle.
- be safe: being protected from harm and abuse.
- enjoy and achieve: getting the most out of life and developing the skills for adulthood.
- make a positive contribution: being involved with the community and society and not engaging in anti-social or offending behaviour.
- achieve economic well-being: not being prevented by economic disadvantage from achieving their full potential in life.
Table 1.1 provides an overview of the ECM outcomes. The five ECM outcomes are interdependent and show the important link between well-being and educational achievement. They were identified by children and young people during consultation.
Table 1.1 Every Child Matters outcomes for children and young people
The opportunities and challenges of Every Child Matters
The opportunities that ECM offers to classroom practitioners are:
- meeting the needs of the whole child: their well-being and learning;
- teaching pupils how to learn and acquire the tools for learning;
- teaching pupils how to look after and improve their well-being;
- promoting emotional intelligence in the classroom and whole school;
- enabling pupils to develop into responsible citizens;
- promoting and supporting pupil voice;
- encouraging pupil self-review and assessment of their own learning and well-being;
- personalising learning and tailoring teaching to meet the needs of pupils;
- improving pupilsā access to learning by the use of ICT and multimedia technology;
- signposting pupils to appropriate personalised services and extended school activities;
- increasing collaborative working with a range of multi-agency practitioners to share information, knowledge, skills and expertise;
- workforce remodelling which offers new roles to some staff, e.g. Director/Manager for ECM; Lead Professional for Personalised Learning; Lead Professional for Pupil Well-being; Coordinator for Multi-agency working.
The challenges that Every Child Matters offers to classroom practitioners are:
- an increased focus on the impact of teaching, additional provision and interventions on improving pupilsā ECM outcomes.
- a greater commitment to parents/carers and pupilsā empowerment and rights;
- increased partnership working with a wider range of external practitioners;
- knowing and understanding the different roles and responsibilities of external practitioners and partners;
- having sufficient time to implement and embed Every Child Matters in everyday practice;
- promoting greater community participation and cohesion;
- understanding of and familiarisation with ECM processes and procedures, e.g. Common Assessment Framework, National Service Framework, Team Around the Child, ContactPoint;
- ensuring effective two-way communication between school staff and external practitioners working directly with pupils in school;
- managing competing priorities, strategies and initiatives within the same amount of time.
Recent research on how schools are implementing Every Child Matters
From 2006 onwards there has been ongoing research into how schools are implementing the ECM agenda. The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), General Teaching Council (GTC), the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) and the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) have published their findings, which focus on some key issues. Tables 1.2 to 1.4 summarise the main findings.
Table 1.2 NFER annual survey of trends in education 2006 and 2007
Box 1.1 What teachers want to help them implement the Every Child Matters initiative
The GTc highlighted the need for:
- Sufficient well-trained, high-quality front-line practitioners from services and agencies to respond effectively to the ECM agenda in order to deliver preventative interventions.
- Greater opportunities for more inter-professional learning, training and development between school staff and multi-agency practitioners in order to improve integrated working.
- Inter-professional training in using inter-agency frameworks and protocols, e.g. National Service Framework (NSF), common Assessment Framework (cAF), contactPoint, Team Around the child (TAc).
- Clearer and improved information for schools on where to refer children and who to seek specific expertise from.
- More up-to-date information about voluntary sector provision available.
- More information and a clearer understanding about the expertise, role, procedures and processes of childrenās services and agencies working with schools.
- More information about the role of the local authority Childrenās Trusts.
- Greater sharing of exemplification of good practice in how to implement ECM and develop effective multi-agency partnership working in educational settings.
- More support needed in monitoring and evaluating the impact of additional provision and interventions on improving ECM outcomes.
Source: GTC 2007a.
Box 1.2 What school leaders want to help them implement the Every Child Matters initiative
The report findings confirmed the need for:
- Greater clarity of purpose in connection with other agencies.
- Schools establishing and consolidating links with partners and other agencies.
- Schools creating a shared vision, purpose, goals with other agencies.
- A common understanding of the professional language used across different multi-professional disciplines.
- Schools establishing a clear line of communication, accountability and decision making with other agencies.
- Greater involvement of outside agencies on the schoolās leadership team.
- Whole school staff training on strategies for fostering multi-agency ways of working together.
- Shared evaluative feedback existing between schools and multi-agencies for ECM.
- A clear understanding of the respective roles and responsibilities of partners and agencies involved in improving ECM outcomes.
- Sufficient local authority support to secure multi-agency inputs for schools.
- Designated staff in schools with sufficient time to coordinate multi-agency partnerships fo...
