Rikama Education’s Post

Paragraph 1: The Education Committee of the UK's House of Commons has created an inquiry into the Government's Children's Social Care Green Paper and its strategy to improve outcomes for children. The inquiry is examining the plans for reforming the Children's Social Care system, the cost and scope of the strategy, and targets for improving outcomes for the long-term. Paragraph 2: The inquiry will provide an important opportunity to examine the adequacy of the policies proposed in the Green Paper and consider the range of possible reforms- from the approaches to providing better services for children currently in care to the structures of the systems that guardians them. It is hoped that these reforms will provide children in care with the opportunity of a brighter future and positive outcomes in the long term. Paragraph 3: The inquiry has the potential to be one of the most important steps in improving the lives of children in care and we are looking forward to seeing the outcomes. #childrenscare #socialcare #educationcommittee

Advocacy matters. Well done to the amazing team at The Parenthood and all those who believe in and strive for universal, accessible, affordable, quality early childhood education and care. A properly funded system no dearer than $10 a day—and free for kids from low income families—would mean NO child would miss out. We would be able to identify and support the one in five kids arriving at school with a developmental vulnerability, double that++ in rural/regional/remote areas. It would free up all the women priced out of work because childcare is unaffordable/inaccessible to participate in the workforce. Australia ranks first in the OECD for women’s education attainment and in the forties for workforce participation. This would be visionary, nation-building policy with every child at its core. I look forward to seeing how the Productivity Commission weighs this against other funding models and how the Government responds, but the PM is right to liken the size of this prize to super and Medicare. It takes guts.👏

CELA and Community Child Care (CCC) lodged a joint response to the Productivity Commission's Draft Report from its Early Childhood Education and Care Inquiry. We expressed our strong support for the key findings and recommendations of the Commission, including the provision of up to 30 hours a week of quality ECEC for children up to 5 years, enhancing subsidies for low-income families, and ensuring the system is inclusive and accessible to all children. We also highlighted the critical need for addressing workforce challenges and the importance of direct government investment in areas lacking services. We agree with the Commission's views that there are higher priorities than moving straight to a 90% subsidy and higher impact areas for Government to invest. The proposed amendments to the activity test to allow for every child to access 30 hours or three days a week of education and care and increasing the subsidy to 100% for low income and disadvantaged children is a significant step towards delivering universal access. However, in recognition of the opportunity for truly effective long-term reform, CCC and CELA believe that several recommendations and findings could be further strengthened in the following areas: -Workforce -Supply side funding -Inclusion -Expanding community managed and not-for-profit services Download and read our full response: https://lnkd.in/gKtfTYzd Download our original submission: https://lnkd.in/gFwVNyjz #preschool #daycare #ozearlyed #earlyyears

⏳ Hundreds of children with special needs wait a year or more for support ⏳ In England, council leaders say that requests for education, health, and care plans (EHCPs) have surged in recent years, while funding to meet the children’s needs has not kept pace. Freedom of Information requests suggest that across England, more than 20,000 cases were waiting longer than the 20-week limit and as many as 3,000 for a year or more; in even worse cases, some have been waiting for more than two years to be issued with an EHCP that details the support they require. Since 2019, the number of plans issued has risen by 72%, so that in 2023, more than 500,000 children and young people had EHCPs, but dedicated funding from the central government for special education needs and disabilities (SEND) has only risen by 42%. Read more from The Guardian here 👉 https://lnkd.in/e27d5t8Q #ReesonEducation #SENDnews #SENDTeaching #SENTeaching #SENDEducation #SENDSupport #SENSupport #TheGuardian #EducationNews

Last week Gov. Healey announced Gateway to Pre-K, her plan to expand #ECE in the commonwealth’s 26 Gateway Cities. The plan has four primary components: >>provide universal preK to four-year-olds in Gateway Cities by the end of 2026 >>increase the “Child Fare Financial Assistance (CCFA) eligibility from 50 percent of the state median income (SMI) to 85 percent SMI to help an additional 4,000 low-and moderate-income families afford care” >>contine the Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) grants in FY25 >>signing an executive order recognizing ECE as an essential economic driver, directing the administration to “take a whole-of-goverment approach to ensuring affordable, high-quality child care.” and creating the Interagency Task Force on Ensuring Affordable High-Quality Child Care. Learn more about Gateway to Pre-K from Strategies for Children's blog, linked below. #EarlyEdMA #EarlyEd

What are we going to do to make our children’s lives better other than just blame educators? NV again ranked 47th in the US in children’s well- being. Most people interpret that as just our education ranking, but it shows how much work we have to do in areas like children’s economic, health and family/community well-being. It’s all interconnected. # children #families # community # responsibility #ifitistobe

Investing in upstream preventive work for disadvantaged children could result in significant gains in intergenerational social mobility. Providing holistic support has led to improvements in both child and parental outcomes. These were some of the key insights that our programme partners shared at the ‘In The Making’ Early Childhood Development Conference, drawing from a decade of work in the Circle of Care programme. Circle of Care was designed as a preventive, preschool-based model that supports children from disadvantaged families, with strong inter-disciplinary partnerships amongst social workers, educators and healthcare professionals. Since 2018, Quantedge Foundation has supported the expansion of the model to 22 preschools and 6 primary schools. https://lnkd.in/gp2TVKFt   #TheEarlyYears #TransformingLives #EmpoweringCommunities #CatalysingChange

CRISIS IN SEND - Why is the Children & Families Act 2014 failing? According to David Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden, it's because disabled people are living longer!!! Sorry about that 'demand for services, ' David, it turns out it's the law, regardless of your condescending view that it's 'well-intentioned'. I realise that it 'puts pressures on the system'; perhaps you might want to revisit the sums you did and, this time, carry the one to make it add up. Oh, and that 'resilience in the system', that's called properly calculated, sustained and sufficient government funding. To provide some context on this debacle, where three* MPs turned up for the debate, please read Mr Davis' own words... "...Education, health and care plans—EHCPs, as they are known—were introduced in 2014. This was a well-intentioned reform that sought to provide holistic support for young people in need. But what the reforms failed to do was provide resilience in the system to deal with future changes to demand for services. In recent years, there has been a huge increase in that demand: population growth, better detection of conditions such as autism, and longer life expectancy because of medical progress all put pressures on the system. As a result, the total number of EHCPs and statements of special educational need has more than doubled since 2015. That is a rise of more than a quarter of a million cases, with large increases in every age group, but the funding from central Government simply has not kept pace..."# The MP spoke this week on the topic of SEND Provision and Funding, choosing to use the clickbait bingo blame card, stating that growth in SEND is the issue. He chose to ignore the real reasons, including poor demographic, fiscal and infrastructure forecasting and a tokenistic Equality Act Impact Assessment. The shockingly poor attendance at the debate illustrates the disregard for SEND by the majority of the House of Commons. This follows the deletion of the post of Secretary of State for Disabled People, which, while now reinstated, has changed to an Under Secretary of State. Another catastrophe was the Department for Education's 'Moments Matter’ campaign, which revealed their ignorance of the complexity of Emotionally Based School Avoidance. They trivialised this critical issue and publicly gaslit those in these difficult situations while ignoring the reasons more children are finding school traumatic. At least they acknowledge the system is in crisis. Sadly, there are still gaps in understanding. If you want to read my views on this, my submission for the post-legislative scrutiny of the Children & Families Act 2014 is here: https://lnkd.in/egqibycH * Perhaps a little more than three, but certainly not enough MPs to properly represent their constituents. # SEND Provision and Funding - Volume 743: debated on Thursday 11 January 2024

Ofsted has today unveiled sweeping reforms following its largest-ever consultation, the ‘Big Listen.’ The changes aim to alleviate the pressures faced by educators and caregivers while ensuring the continued focus on improving outcomes for vulnerable children across the UK.     Introduction to Ofsted's New Approach Ofsted has announced a series of reforms in response to the feedback from its ‘Big Listen’ consultation, where over 20,000 respondents, including parents, educators, and social care professionals, shared their views. #educationsectorreforms #newOfstedframework #OfstedBigListen #Ofstedconsultationresponse #Ofstedinspectionchanges #reportcardsystem #socialcareinspection #teacherstressreduction #UKeducationstandards #thxnews

Teacher shortage is costing PA Economy Billions of Dollars Annually: "A new report from the nonprofit ReadyNation surveyed more than 300 PA working mothers and estimated an annual economic cost of $2.4 billion in lost earnings, productivity, and tax revenue due to gaps in Pennsylvania's child care system." "According to the report, the vast majority of child care responsibility still falls on mothers; therefore, work disruptions, career barriers, and financial burdens caused by inadequate child care are greater for working moms as a percentage of earnings than all working parents. The annual economic cost of both working mothers and fathers dealing with gaps in PA's child care system is estimated at $6.65 billion annually." Read more: https://lnkd.in/gbNvPY_z