Today’s Education in the Media blog looks at the ADCS report on children’s services, the T Levels Professional Development announcement, and the launch of the next phase of the Strategic College Improvement Fund.
ADCS Report
Today, Wednesday 7 November, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) published a report on children’s social care services. This was covered by BBC Online, as well as on broadcast and radio.
Last week, the Chancellor announced £84m in the Autumn budget to build on learning from existing Innovation Programme projects in Hertfordshire, Leeds and North Yorkshire, and share effective practices with councils to improve their social work practice and decision-making, to help more children stay in a stable family environment.
Minister for Children and Families Nadhim Zahawi said:
Every child, no matter their circumstances, should have the care and support they need for a happy, fulfilling life. That’s why we are improving children’s social care and the child protection system so that children at risk are identified sooner, and across Government, tackling the causes of why children are in need – including through our landmark Domestic Abuse Bill to better support victims, cracking down on child exploitation in all of its forms, improving access to specialist mental health support for children and young people, and looking at how we can improve the educational outcomes for children in need.
In the Budget we announced an additional £410million for adult and children’s social care services, in recognition of the pressures on local councils. We are also investing £84m over the next five years to support up to 20 local authorities who are seeing high or rising demand for children’s social care to work more effectively with their most vulnerable families.
T Levels
Today, Wednesday 7 November, we have announced teachers and further education college leaders can benefit from an £8million training package to help them teach the government’s new T Level qualifications.
The training developed by the Education and Training Foundation will help them develop the skills and knowledge they need to deliver gold standard T Level courses.
The first T Level courses in education & childcare, construction, and digital, will be taught in over 50 further education and post-16 providers from September 2020.
From 2021 onwards, there will be a further 22 courses rolled out covering finance & accounting, engineering, and design.
Apprenticeships and Skills Minister Anne Milton said:
T Levels will widen the choices for young people, offering them more than one route to a rewarding career. T Level will equip young people with the knowledge and skills for further study in education or in the workplace.
It’s a big and important change, and we know we have to be prepared if we want our technical education system to be first class.
This new programme will help teachers to build on their skills and gain the additional knowledge they need to make new T Levels a success as soon as the starting pistol is fired.
Strategic College Improvement Fund
Yesterday, Tuesday 6 November, we launched round 2 of the Strategic College Improvement Fund (SCIF). This £15 million initiative aims to drive improvements across further education in colleges.
In addition to the aforementioned T Levels which will be implemented from 2020, we are also supporting the creation of more high quality apprenticeships.
The SCIF was launched in June 2018 to develop more peer-to-peer support programme for colleges.
Apprenticeships and Skills Minister Anne Milton said:
Colleges are an extremely important part of our education system, and are absolutely central to our technical education reforms. They play an essential role in making sure people of all ages and backgrounds have the skills they need to get on in life.
I’m thrilled to invite even more colleges to apply for funding from the SCIF. By working together with top colleges, they will get the support they need to make sure their learners get the very best education and training. This will mean more opportunities for people right across the country to access high-quality education and training.
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