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Memorandum submitted by Save the Children
1. Save the Children fights for vulnerable children in the UK and around the world who suffer from poverty, disease, injustice and violence. We work with them to find lifelong answers to the problems they face. We work to ensure that the rights of children are protected, promoted and respected in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and other international human rights instruments.
2. For many years in the UK, we have been developing research into education and poverty, as well as, implementing projects that concentrate on the most deprived and marginalised groups of children and young people. We never give in to those who think big changes are impossible. Our priorities across the UK are:
· An end to children living in severe poverty by 2015
· Education that delivers for the poorest and most vulnerable children
3. We are a member of the End Child Poverty Campaign www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/
Summary and Recommendations
4. In its Concluding Observations on the United Kingdom (Oct 2008), the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child[1], the UN treaty monitoring body for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) stressed that the UK Government needs to: · Strengthen efforts to ensure that all of the provisions of the UNCRC are widely known and understood by adults and children alike, by including the UNCRC in the statutory national curriculum and ensure that its principles and values are integrated into the structures and practice of all schools.[2] · Ensure adequate and systematic training of all professional groups working for and with children, in particular law enforcement officials, immigration officials, media, teachers, health personnel, social workers and personnel of childcare institutions.[3]
Save the Children recommends that:
5. Teachers should be trained to fully understand all principles and provisions of the United Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) through initial teacher training (ITT) and continuing professional development (CPD) and adequately supported to incorporate the principles of the Convention into teaching practice.
6. One of the starkest inequalities in our society is the extremely different educational experiences that children in poverty have, compared to children from more affluent backgrounds. Pupils from the most deprived areas are more likely to go to a worse school, to enjoy the experience less, to account for higher levels of absence, lower levels of attainment and are more likely to leave school without qualifications.[4] The UN Committee emphasised that the UK Government should: · Continue and strengthen its efforts to reduce the effects of the social background of children in their achievement in school.[5]
Save the Children recommends that:
7. Current ITT and CPD provision meets the needs of teachers based in schools operating in 'challenging circumstances', particularly schools and settings serving deprived communities and with high intakes of pupils eligible for Free School Meals.
Initial Teacher Training and Continuing Professional Development to ensure that the principles and values of the UNCRC are integrated into the structures and practice of all schools:
8. Article 42 of the UNCRC, states that governments should ensure that the principles and provisions of the UNCRC are widely known among both children and adults, including all professionals working with children, this includes teachers.
9. Some progress has been made in relation to ensuring that the principles and values of the UNCRC are integrated into the structures and practice of all school, for example, in early 2007, the DCSF awarded funding to UNICEF UK for their Rights Respecting School Award, which promotes the UNCRC as the basis for enhancing teaching, learning, ethos, attitudes and behaviour in schools. The Ministry of Justice also commissioned the British Institute of Human Rights and Amnesty to produce a teaching pack for Key Stage 3 citizenship teachers on human rights, which also includes a section on the UNCRC.[6]
10. The DCSF also supports an ITT pilot in partnership with Amnesty International UK, the British Institute of Human Rights and Save the Children UK, to pilot practical action to go towards meeting the Committee's recommendations. However, no progress has been made in including human rights education, including the UNCRC within the ITT and CPD curriculum.
11. On October 3rd 2008, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the UN treaty monitoring body for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), published its Concluding Observations on the UK. The Concluding Observations set out progress made by the UK Government and the devolved administrations in implementing the UNCRC.
12. In relation to the implementation of article 42 of the UNCRC, the Committee expressed concern "that there is no systematic awareness-raising of the Convention and that the level of knowledge about it among children, parents or professional working with children is low."[7] It noted that the UNCRC is not part of the curriculum in schools and its principles and values are not currently systematically integrated into the structures and practice of all schools and professional groups working for and with children.[8]
Incorporating the UNCRC into ITT and CPD
13. The UNCRC provides a globally-agreed set of standards for all children. In learning about rights, pupils learn that all children have these same rights, unconditionally which develops a sense of being connected with other children globally and supports children in their development of becoming, and sense of being, 'global citizens'. Through learning about their rights children also learn about the importance of respecting the rights of others.
14. The UNCRC also provides adults and children a framework which they can use regularly and consistently in relation to a wide range of issues in schools from pupil participation to approaches to school discipline The language and culture of rights can be continuously reinforced through classroom and corridor displays, assemblies, and the regular and consistent use of the language of rights by all members of the school community.
15. Support for a rights-based approach to be embedded into ITT also comes from leading experts in the field of school improvement and effectiveness, as MacGilchrist asserts, "we would place pupils' rights and responsibilities at the heart of an effective school."[9]
16. Through the process of devising and implementing the pilot ITT project it has become clear that it would be inadvisable and impractical to create and deliver a specific module of work on the UNCRC but should be incorporated as a cross curricular initiative, embedding the approach in whole course development. Interim findings from ITT institutions and schools across England demonstrate the benefit of incorporating the UNCRC into the curriculum.
· Children and young people have raised self-esteem after experiencing teaching practice based on principles of the UNCRC; · Teachers find their role more professionally satisfying; · Children and young people have more positive attitudes towards diversity and difference; · Behaviour and relationships improve, including teacher/pupil relationships; · Pupils make better progress in their learning, including progress in language and literacy; · There is less bullying in schools; · Children and young people become more confident and articulate when engaging with moral issues, including issues of global justice, reaching higher levels of understanding as 'global citizens'.
Case Study - London Metropolitan University Secondary PGCE (Lee Jerome, Secondary PGCE Programme Director)
17. London Metropolitan University is committed to the promotion of social justice and to making a significant contribution to the development of London. This is reflected in the secondary PGCE programme, which has always focused on urban education and diversity. Our student teachers reflect the diversity of London, as do our partnership schools, and so when the secondary team was approached by a consortium of NGOs with a small grant to promote human rights in initial teacher education, this seemed like a project that would fit perfectly with our ethos.
18. We started planning in spring 2008 for the September launch of our Rights Respecting PGCE. We decided that a permeation model would serve us best, both as a practical response to the demands on the PGCE curriculum, but also because it promoted the core message - that children's rights should be seen as underpinning education and should be used to think about school structures, professional roles and the everyday interactions between teachers and pupils.
19. Of course, like many teachers who have witnessed the variety of cross-curricular initiatives that come and go, we were also aware that the claim that themes 'permeate' the curriculum too often translates as 'they are everywhere and nowhere' - taught in such an integrated fashion that no-one knows they are there, so sporadically that experiences are not connected up and largely un-assessed. In order to avoid this we have agreed the following elements.
20. Course Rationale: An introduction to the project features in the introduction to the course handbook and makes the links between children's rights, the various elements in the PGCE course, and the wider policy agenda embodied in Every Child Matters.
21. Professional Studies:The common spine of the PGCE is a series of keynote lectures, with cross-curricular workshop groups, and associated school-based tasks. We reviewed the programme to ensure links were made with children's rights wherever possible and, where necessary, we revised some lectures to reflect this theme more explicitly.
22. Induction: day 1 of the course starts with a lecture which is split between the Programme Director and the Headteacher of one of our partnership schools. This lecture is followed by an interactive workshop facilitated by our NGO partners to ensure all our student teachers become familiar with some of the core principles of children's rights.
23. Inclusion: a series of lectures have been pulled together under the general theme of 'inclusion' and these will be explored in relation to the general challenge of realising every child's right to an education. As well as our usual discussions of London's diversity, English as an Additional Language and Refugee education, we have tweaked some sessions, for example the lecture on SEN will include case studies of how children and their parents are consulted over individual education plans, and the 14-19 reforms will be explored within the broader policy framework of personalisation.
24. Assessment: as the team member responsible for this lecture I was quite pleased to review this with a view to cutting down the overview of the exam and testing system in order to focus afresh on ways to empower children to share responsibility and gain independence through effective assessment practice, which it is embedded in everyday teaching and learning.
25. Every Child Matters days: we have also put together two days of elective workshops, and students can pick their own way through the programme to explore issues such as sexual diversity and schools, children as researchers, students as co-planners, extended schools, multi-professional teams, working with Teaching Assistants.
26. End of course review: this workshop falls in the last week of the course and will encourage students to reflect on the course theme and identify practice they want to celebrate and problems they need to think about in relation to their future teaching. This has the potential to fit in with our Career Entry Development Profile target setting.
27. Subjects: The secondary team met at the Amnesty offices for a planning day to discuss the ways in which children's rights could be integrated into the subject specific workshops. Each tutor agreed to timetable at least one workshop a term with the theme identified as an explicit objective. Some examples emerged from our planning meeting: Citizenship is exploring rights and responsibilities as key concepts underpinning the whole programme; English, Media and Drama are exploring ways in which rights can be taught through class readers, and aspects of critical literacy; Modern Foreign Languages is using the Amnesty key stage 3 resource pack, which is full of ideas for integrating rights in the classroom; Music is exploring the ways in which rights and conflicts over rights find expression in music; Science is investigating the ways in which 'race' is constructed; PE is focusing on teaching children to assume leadership roles.
28. Assignments: Two of our assignments have been identified as being particularly appropriate for students to explore the theme of rights in greater detail. The first one requires students to create a medium term plan based on (a) core concepts and processes or (b) curriculum opportunities and we have suggested that they may wish to explore rights through the content or the pedagogical strategies they choose to develop. The second assignment is an investigation into any current educational issue and students can choose to base this entirely in school, or partly in alternative educational settings. Here we have suggested they might explore issues related to children's rights.
29. Whilst it is inevitable that student teachers will engage with the rights theme to different degrees, we hope that all students will leave the course with a better understanding of what children's rights are and how they relate to their role as a teacher. They should also understand that children's rights provide a values framework that provides coherence to many current initiatives in education.
The Need for ITT and CPD to address the Impact of Poverty on Children's Experiences of School
30. The UN Committee also recommended that Government, in accordance with Article 4 of the UNCRC, "allocate the maximum extent of available resources for the implementation of children's rights, with a special focus on eradicating child poverty and reduce inequalities across all jurisdictions"[10] and urged the UK Government to "strengthen its efforts to reduce the effects of the social background of children in their achievement in school."[11]
31. In relation to educational outcomes, children living in poverty are identified in two ways - registration of free school meals (FSM) and those living in the most deprived areas. Eligibility for Free School Meals continues to be strongly associated with low achievement:
· How most children experience school is determined by the level of disadvantage they face. Poorer children feel that they are not going to get the same quality of schooling, or the same outcomes, as better-off children.[12]
· Schools do make a difference to outcomes. While students' social and economic circumstances are the most important factors explaining their educational results, about 14 per cent of the incidence of low achievement is attributable to school quality.[13]
· Of those children poor enough to qualify for free school meals, less than one in five is currently achieving five good GCSEs, including English and Maths.[14]
· Whilst there has been an increase in the numbers of children gaining five good GCSEs, the number of children eligible for FSM gaining five good GCSEs has not increased at the same rate.[15]
· In some areas of the country, the gap in achievement between children eligible for FSM and their peers has widened.[16]
· Educational underachievement contributes to social exclusion in later life. Young people with poor educational outcomes are at an increased risk of unemployment and low pay, poorer health and a general lower standard of living.[17]
· Save the Children is particularly concerned that teachers do not feel that they have been trained adequately to ensure that their practice meets the needs of operating in 'challenging circumstances'.[18]
Emerging CPD on the Impact of Poverty for Headteachers but not for Teachers
32. There is evolving CPD provision available for Headteachers operating in 'challenging circumstances', such as, The National College for School Leadership's 'narrowing the gap' project[19], NCSL's System Leadership Research[20] and their partnership research into effective school leadership and white working class underachievement[21] undertaken in conjunction with the National Union of Teachers and The University of Manchester. However, there seems to be a critical gap in provision for teachers to undergo training to effectively equip them with the skills and confidence to teach in deprived communities.
33. In the recently published social mobility white paper, New Opportunities: Fair Chances for the Future (Jan 2009), references are made to the possibility of ITT and CPD becoming available in the future for teachers working in selected 'challenging' schools[22], however further details of what this might entail or how it will function as yet remain unclear.
34. Whilst Save the Children recognises that the ability of teachers to offset disadvantage is limited, we believe that it is essential that their roles are supported to be as effective in doing so as possible. There is emerging practice in The United States that offers ITT on the impact of poverty on children's experiences of education. For example, The Effects of Poverty on Education module offered by the Teacher Education Institute considers "effective ways teachers may empower students to overcome the barriers to learning that results from the impact of poverty."
35. There are many teachers who are able to inspire and support children and young people living in poverty to succeed, against enormous odds. However, a significant number of teachers have told us that they would like training to be available on the impact of poverty to ensure that their practice is as effective and inclusive as possible. Save the Children will be piloting in a range of settings a 'poverty proofing' education services toolkit to explore this key issue further. This toolkit will span the gamut of relevant issues - from, validated good teaching practice to participation, to budgeting to outreach. We will also be publishing research that will analyse how well education in its widest sense is delivering for the poorest children and young people. The aim of our education programme will be to offer solutions to barriers impeding the translation of national policy vision (narrowing the gap for the poorest children) into local reality.
January 2009
[1] United Nations Convention on the Rights of The Child, 1989. [2] UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Paragraph 21, October 2008. [3] Ibid [4] Cassen, R. and G. Kingdon. Tackling Low Educational Achievement. Case Paper 118. London: The Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion: London School of Economics, 2007. [5] UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Paragraph 67, October 2008. [6] Ministry of Justice, British Institute of Human Rights, Amnesty International and Department for Children, Schools and families (2008) Right Here, Right Now: Teaching Citizenship through Human Rights [7] UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Paragraph 20, October 2008. [8] UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Paragraph 21, October 2008. [9] MacGilchrist, Myers and Reed. The Intelligent School in Wilkins, C. in R. Bailey (ed.) Teaching Values, Education and Citizenship in Schools' London: Kogan Page, 2004.
[10] UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Paragraph 19, October 2008. [11] UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Paragraph 67, October 2008. [12] Horgan, G. The Impact of Poverty on Young Children's Experience of School. York: JRF, Nov 2007. [13] Cassen, R. and G. Kingdon. Tackling Low Educational Achievement. Case Paper 118. London: The Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion: London School of Economics, 2007. [14] Ibid [15] Report from the Independent Commission on Social Mobility, January 2009. Pg 6. [16] The Bow Group. Invisible Children. 2007 . Pg 4. [17] Cassen, R. and G. Kingdon. Tackling Low Educational Achievement. Case Paper 118. London: The Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion: London School of Economics, 2007. [18] Save the Children UK Improving Educational Outcomes for Children Living in Poverty through Parental Involvement in Primary Schools, 2007. [19] NCSL. Leadership for Narrowing the Gap. See http://www.ncsl.org.uk/region-index/leadership_network-index/leadershipnetwork- initiatives/leadershipnetwork-initiatives-narrowing.htm. [20] NCSL. Leadership Development Beyond The School - System Leadership, 2007. See http://www.ncsl.org.uk/publications- index/publications-overview-beyond-school.htm?sgroup=111. [21] Mongon, D and C. Chapman. Successful Leadership for Promoting the Achievement of White Working Class Pupils, 2008. [22] Cabinet Office. New Opportunities: Fair Chances for the Future, 2009. Pg 53. |