Conference: Building Parental Confidence and Enabling SEND Success

Birmingham City Council's SEND service will be hosting a one day conference on 29th June. Attendees can expect to :

• Hear from the leading experts in the field. 
• Discover how effective parental engagement can have a dramatic impact upon pupil attainment in a very short period of time; for all groups of pupils, including those children considered ‘hard to reach,’ SEND pupils and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. 
• Find out how schools can best move forwards to build parental confidence and bring about success for all pupils, including those with SEND.  Find out more

A busy week....

It was a busy week in Parliament last week with the state opening and the Queen's Speech which set out the new government's plan for their first year in office; NCB's Anna Feuchtwang gives her analysis of events and how children and young people fared on issues such as child poverty, children's rights and childcare. This NCB briefing provides further information about the Bills that will impact children and young people.

A full list of newly appointed government ministers can be found here. 

Nurseries influence reading ability

The Read On. Get On. campaign have highlighted that half of independent nurseries currently do not employ a qualified early years teacher, failing disadvantaged children in need of skilled support. They are asking for the next Government to ensure all nurseries are led by a qualified early years graduate and as an incentive, to increase the early years pupil premium for those nurseries that do. Their report, 'The Power of Reading', details how early years investment and the quality of staff in nurseries must be prioritised, or the gap in reading ability between England’s poorest and better off children will remain one of the worst in Europe. 

The recommendations come as research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) links the value of strong reading skills in school-age children to future earnings as an adult.

Child Poverty

You will probably be aware that the Budget was announced today and many were eagerly waiting to hear what the Chancellor would have to say about child poverty. His statement on the subject, was that levels of child poverty have come down; this, however, contradicts a recent report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, forecasting that the Chancellor’s tax and benefit decisions will lead to child poverty rising by 400,000 over this parliament and by 700,000 overall by 2020. The report also takes a look over the past decade and estimates the impact that the current government's reforms have had on poverty .

While on the topic, other resources include a study by Young Lives, considers how poverty has been measured and conceptualised in the universal childhood experience and, in particular, the risks faced by children living in chronic poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has commissioned a project that explores the relationship between parenting and poverty. If you are looking for useful statistics, policies, campaigns and related publications, take a look at the Child Poverty Action Group website.

Although now out of print, two influential works have been made available online and are well worth mentioning here; the first is 'Poverty in the United Kingdom', by sociologist, Peter Townsend, who pioneered a relative deprivation approach to poverty that covered a wide range of aspects of living standards, both material and social. The other book is 'Poor Britain' by Mack and Lansley who introduced the concept of ‘socially perceived necessities’.