PIN Scotland March 14 th 2006 Working together yet? David Cameron , Director of Children’s Services, Stirling Council

1. PIN Scotland March 14th 2006Working together yet?David Cameron, Director of Children’s Services, Stirling Council

2. The Challenge • It’s not just poverty • It’s rarely just learning needs • It’s never just the child • Schools can make a difference, but they cannot make all the difference • It’s more than just attainment

3. The risks • Raising attainment /widening the gap • Focussing on leaver destinations/pressures from HE and FE • Pressures from parents and from parental choice • Catering for choice in the upper school • Resourcing transition

4. What we teach must work for all the children and tap all their potential talents, not just some of them. The curriculum that we offer must be broad, balanced and progressive. It must reach out and touch all children in a way that makes sense to each individual child. It must motivate each child, involve each child, inspire and enlighten each child. It must be a curriculum that recognises that there are many kinds of knowing, feeling and expressing truth.

5. Yoga for the curriculum • One size does not fit all • Pre-vocational provision/ alternative curriculum • Relaxation of Age and Stage Restrictions • Emphasising learning • Getting flexible • Multiple assessment

6. Organisational Gymnastics • Use of setting • Multiple models • Flexible timetabling in primary and secondary • Exploiting the technology • Deploying staff to play to strengths • Deploying learning support staff

7. Holding hands • The need for Better Integrated Children’s Services • The increasing challenge of social inclusion • The establishment of Community Planning • The emphasis on Social Justice, Health etc. • The ambitions and frustrations of all of those determined to improve the circumstances of young people.

8. Further Principles • We must tap the potential of all of our services and agencies • We must have common targets and shared priorities which we establish together • We must build on the Changing Children’s Services Fund • We must address the “cultural” issues

9. Challenges • Schools must look at their practice. They must see themselves as having a shared responsibility for children • Other agencies need to be aware of the demands on, and circumstances of, schools • but we need to work and plan together. We all own the future • We need to design effective joint training

10. In summary • Providing better services means better services for all • We cannot just target the most vulnerable and least advantaged young people, we need to think about all of our services in terms of their impact on them • We must invest in the strategies that we believe will work, but we must also prioritise the resources that we have

11. Can a summary be this long? • We need to create a culture where we all believe we can make a difference and where we want to make a difference • We need to listen, to learn and to act

12. camerond@stirling.gov.uk David Cameron Director of Children’s Services Stirling Council