Fair Education Alliance

💷 Fair Education Alliance Autumn Budget response 💷 We were pleased to see the Chancellor make a substantial investment in schools in yesterday’s Autumn Budget. The £2.3 billion committed to schools, including £1 billion for SEND and £30 million for breakfast clubs, are crucial steps. We are also happy to see real-terms per-pupil spending above its 2010 level for the first time. The £6.7 billion committed to capital funding and £2.1 billion for school maintenance are sorely needed, and £15 million to begin delivery of 3,000 schools-based nurseries is a welcome start in early years. That these commitments have happened in such a tough fiscal climate is an important signal that education is regaining political prominence.   In addition, we are happy to see the government invest £100 million in innovation at local and regional levels. So many of the challenges we face will be solved within and by communities, and this is an encouraging sign of more effective join-up across services. However, to properly shift outcomes for the most vulnerable children and young people, investments made here must be coupled with changes to address the root causes of the challenges we face. We urge the Government to restore real-term Pupil Premium funding and extend the Pupil Premium to Early Years and Post-16 settings, where it is arguably even more needed. 💡 Bellow are some (short and long-term) changes we would like to see funded through this and subsequent budgets.💡   Teacher recruitment and retention 📖 Improve recruitment and promotion processes and support to better retain individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds at application stage through to senior leadership. 📖 Incentivise schools to adopt flexible working approaches to make teaching a sustainable career choice.  SEND 🔵 Define what an inclusive school culture looks like and fund the spread of this practice around the system. 🔵 Direct some of the £100 million innovation fund towards the join-up of public services around children with SEND.  Early education and childcare 🐣 Children whose parents are in training or out of work should receive the government’s funded childcare hours entitlement. 🐣 Joined up working of public services in the early years outside of formal settings to promote the development of children who do not attend formal settings, as this is disproportionately those from low-income households and with SEND. While we must deliver the best possible education for those in the system now, we must also not lose the opportunity to ensure the plans we set up for the future will result in a fairer education system for every child in the generations to come. You can find the full response on our website: https://lnkd.in/eSZEn7_N

🤯166 young people attended our 2024 Fair Education Youth Summit with Mission 44 today at UBS in Central London, a conference designed by and for young people who have faced barriers to education. Here are our highlights from the day:     We heard from MPs and policy/decision makers on how young people’s input is taken into consideration and implemented in policy making.     Thought provoking breakout sessions included:    👉 How young people can get involved and have their voices heard, led by Youth Advisory Board members    👉 How young people can use content creation as a tool for change with Coco Khan     👉 Learning how to incorporate social action, soft skills and experience into your CV with Felicity Halstead from GoodWork

From neighbourhood to national... It's a couple of weeks since our roundtable on systems and place-based change and, in our recent member bulletin, Gina Cicerone has been reflecting on what we've learned: "We heard from dozens of members in our workshop about the intersection between systems change and place-based change. We discussed a few risks and how to mitigate them: - Not enough focus on ourself: When exploring this deeply, what did it all come down to? Us. One participant asked “do we need to change people or ourselves, rather than systems”. Louisa from AllChild (Formerly West London Zone) talked about epistemic humility, which recognises that our own knowledge is incomplete and provisional, and sets us up for constant learning. I think that’s one amazing mental model that can support our growth. We need to embed practices to identify and challenge our own mental models. - Competing across the country: Through the resurgence of “place”, there are many backbone organisations, anchor institutions and local convenors. We all have a role to play, whether connector, facilitator, disruptor or activator, and our join-up is key. This can be hard: everyone is trying to ensure maximum impact and, often, sustainability. Instead of duplication, we need to focus on building trust as an outcome in and of itself – with all those involved, not just community members. - We see “place” as the panacea: As Graeme from Right To Succeed said, the key factor for work in place is the community – for both leadership and involvement. But we must balance that with the fact that community can’t happen in a silo – we need partnerships all the way from neighbourhood to national, and sharing between communities. There are also other ways to take a systems change approach besides place - so starting with the six conditions framework can be a helpful guide to mapping that out. - Ignoring the root causes: Local authorities are facing reduced funding or bankruptcy (reiterated again in the National Audit Office’s SEN report), so other backbones emerge to take on the issues that sometimes were, can and/or should be addressed by local government. This is an opportunity to address the root causes so we don’t end up in a similar situation, but just through another route. What next? We're looking forward to continuing this important conversation with our members and stakeholders. If you’d like to learn more about our work on systems and place-based change or share your own experience, please comment below. If you're part of a member organisation, make sure you use our updated Ecosystem Map – it’s packed with information on member activity in 24,000 education settings across England. It’s a vital tool for collaboration across regions and localities, allowing you to filter by local authority, parliamentary constituency, member activity and more.”

💷 Budget 2024: Protect School budgets and invest in educational opportunity for every child.   If we are to achieve the economic growth and strengthened society that the Government and voters want, we must start with education, and we must have cooperation from business, civil society and government, both at a national and local level.    The education system is in urgent need of investment to prepare our society to prosper in the future. Increasingly, there is a wedge being driven between pupils from low-income families and others, and the proportion of children living in poverty continues to increase. We haven’t equipped schools to meet the needs of the children with the greatest challenges, and that’s impacting our ability to recruit and retain teachers, children’s engagement with education, and the attainment gap that has grown ever wider.    To reverse the present trend, we need sustained attention to its root causes. Through the insight and expertise of our membership, we know what’s needed, and this is laid out in full in our Priorities for a New Government. Achieving a fair education for every child will require investment, and we urge the Government to protect school budgets despite predicted decreases in pupil numbers, and to make targeted investments to support the most vulnerable. These include:   - Extend Free School Meals eligibility to all children whose families are eligible for universal credit. Analysis shows this would bring core benefits of £8.4 billion and wider benefits of £16.2 billion over a 20-year period. - Restore Pupil Premium funding to 2015-2016 rates - Raise the Early Years Pupil Premium to match the primary rate and extend the Pupil Premium to 16-19 education at the secondary rate - Introduce 30 hours of funded early years education for all three and four-year-old children, regardless of parental education or employment status. Children from low-income families should be prioritised for funded hours, with funding covering the full cost for providers. - Restore investment in high-quality 1:1 and small-group tuition for the pupils who most need it. The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) and 16-19 Tuition Fund should be restored to support ongoing pandemic recovery. - Introduce national data collection of the wellbeing of young people so we can better understand the causes and solutions to declining pupil mental health and wellbeing.   We know that demands on the public purse are high as ever, but investing in our children and young people to thrive must be a priority – all of today’s children will be part of tomorrow’s society. This work is the reason we exist, and we look forward to working with Government to make this future a reality.

New polling from Teach First highlights the impact of child poverty on schools serving low income communities. We want to see a joined up approach to tackling these issues. Read our policy priorities on 'a joined up system that meets rising needs' in our Priorities for a New Government report: https://lnkd.in/dzbA3r-g

🚀 Join our team! We're looking for a Digital Communications Manager (part-time, hybrid/London) If you are a digital communications all-rounder, then this role is for you. We're looking for a new team member to manage and develop our digital channels to reach key audiences, drive engagement with our member organisations, and increase public awareness of educational inequality. You will have a creative and engaging approach to content creation and work closely with the Secretariat and Alliance members.  The role is part-time (22.5 hours per week) and we can work with you to find a suitable working pattern. Details in the job ad - please share with your networks! Deadline 4 November. #hr #hiringandpromotion #jobalert #nowhiring #job #gethired #jobopening #recruiting #jobopening #hiring #joinourteam #jobs #jobhirin #remotework #jobsearch #jobsearching #jobseekers #hire #purpose #charityjob #UKcharity #education #charitycomms #digitalmarketing #socialmedia

Our recent Lessons in Leadership session with Brett Wigdortz OBE was full of valuable insights for our Scaling Award winners ✨ Brett emphasised the importance of embracing failure as a learning opportunity, encouraging leaders to see setbacks as a path to growth. He also highlighted the need for education charities to amplify youth voices in strategic decision-making, ensuring that those we serve are always at the heart of our work. The session reinforced the idea that strong leadership is built on trust, adaptability, and a focus on long-term impact!

It was great to meet with David Baines MP and Anthony Broxton this morning – their passion for supporting children and young people came through so strongly. We’d expect nothing less from a former teacher! A few of the topics we discussed in the context of our Fair Education Priorities: - How we can collect and use data beyond academic measures, while also supporting mainstream schools to get the best possible academic outcomes for all pupils? - How can we work with Government to better link up work happening on the curriculum, child poverty, Ofsted, and skills? - How do we create space for teachers to experiment, get creative, and go deep? Gina Cicerone and Janeen Hayat are looking forward to working together with David and Anthony over the months and years to come!  

From centre stage to behind the scenes – take a peek into our #InnovationAward2024 award winners' journey so far! They kicked off their incubator sessions bonding over LEGO and delving deep into their Theory of Change🌟 Yusuf Ben-Tarifite Yasmin B. Charly Young MBE Alaya Holloway Jenna Maudlin Sean Harris FCCT

🚀 Join our team! We're looking for a Digital Communications Manager (part-time, hybrid/London) If you are a digital communications all-rounder, then this role is for you. We're looking for a new team member to manage and develop our digital channels to reach key audiences, drive engagement with our member organisations, and increase public awareness of educational inequality. You will have a creative and engaging approach to content creation and work closely with the Secretariat and Alliance members.  The role is part-time (22.5 hours per week) and we can work with you to find a suitable working pattern. Details in the job ad - please share with your networks! Deadline 4 November. #hr #hiringandpromotion #jobalert #nowhiring #job #gethired #jobopening #recruiting #jobopening #hiring #joinourteam #jobs #jobhirin #remotework #jobsearch #jobsearching #jobseekers #hire #purpose #charityjob #UKcharity #education #charitycomms #digitalmarketing #socialmedia