Review of 2009

If it's nearly Christmas, it must be time for the endless 'best of' and 'most important' lists that appear everywhere at the end of each year. So here's a little round up of important events within the early years, education and childcare sectors which occurred during 2009:

Surely the biggest education story of the year was the publication in October of the final report from the Cambridge Primary Review; the Review's criticisms of existing provision within primary education made the front page of many newspapers (see previous post for details). Other educational reviews that took place in 2009 included Sir Jim Rose's Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum, Sir Alan Steer's Behaviour Review, and Graham Badman's Review of Elective Home Education in England.

Another large-scale project which presented its final conclusions in 2009 was the Good Childhood Inquiry, which was carried out by the Children's Society and published its final report in February. This previous post gives you a flavour of the coverage which was generated at the time.

May saw the launch of ContactPoint, a controversial database with details on every child in England. Try looking at this post for a discussion of the issues involved (although the vote it mentions is now closed.)

Child Poverty was a constant theme throughout 2009, as it has been for several years. This year, the government made it a legal duty for the government and local authorities to eradicate child poverty in the UK by 2020. For a list of posts and links to reports on this topic published throughout the year, click here.

November saw the release of Building a Safe, Confident Future; this was the final report of the Social Work Task Force, and contains various recommendations for the future direction of the profession. The government have accepted the report's findings in full.

There were a number of new versions of annual publications which readers should find useful; if you want detailed information about education, families, social issues and more in the UK, then the 2009 version of Social Trends is well worth a look. While for information with a more global focus, UNICEF's State of the World's Children report makes for interesting reading; the theme for this year's report was a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Closer to home, it was also the 20th anniversary of the Children Act 1989, which Community Care marked with a series of articles assessing its impact.

In August the 5th annual Playday took place, and this link gives you access to a number of useful research reports which were released to mark the occasion. On a similar note, November's anti-bullying week saw a flurry of new projects and research from various interested organisations, so click here to find out about some of these initiatives. November also saw the publication of Ofsted's annual report, which was slightly overshadowed by the release of a paper from the Association of Directors for Children's Services arguing that Ofsted needed to make radical changes to their inspection model.

And a few random picks from the past year to round things off... A number of students expressed an interest in finding out about Forest Schools, so perhaps this post from May was useful for you...? Sesame Street celebrated it's 40th birthday... The magazine Children and Young People launched a series of blogs which are an excellent way of getting different perspectives on issues within the childcare sector... And only last week the newly formed UK Council for Child Internet Safety published Click Clever, Click Safe: The First UK Child Internet Safety Strategy. Yet bizarrely, for the second year in a row, easily the most visited page on this site (after the homepage) was this post from May 2008, which gives you a link to the full text of the 1978 Warnock Report.

Have I missed anything? If you'd like to draw attention to an important event or report from this year then just leave a comment below with details and I'll see about getting it published on here; here's how to do it.

The blog will be taking a break for Christmas, but will resume in the second week of January. In the meantime, take a look at the legendary Peanuts cartoon site, which will surely tell you as much about children's minds as any research. So all that's left is to wish all visitors to the site a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Lamb Inquiry

In a year that's produced a string of reviews and inquiries, it seems that there's still time for a final one before 2009 ends. The latest one is the The Lamb Inquiry, which looked at how the delivery of SEN system within England could be improved. In particular, the Inquiry focussed on the needs of parents of SEN children, and has concluded that the existing services need a radical overhaul. To read the full text of the final report, click here.

New Reports from Becta

Becta have recently released several new publications which should be relevant to those of you with an interest in ICT. Or if you are a parent with children at school, then you may also find a couple of the new booklets useful. Links to each one are below:

• Supporting Your Child's Learning has been developed to provide parents with information on how technology can help them keep in touch with their child's school.
• Parents as Partners in Learning provide schools and headteachers with information on how to use technology to improve communications with parents.
• Schools and Parents: A new Partnership reports on research exploring what motivates, and hinders, successful parental engagement to benefit the child, parents and schools.

Finally, Becta: Our Work, its Impact is the organisation's annual review of it's actitivities, examining how Becta helps both pupils and staff to make use of education within education.

Child Internet Safety Strategy

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety was set up in the wake of the Byron Review (see previous post for details), and brings together over 150 stakeholders to collaborate in helping children and families with online issues.

This week the Council has released its first major publication entitled Click Clever Click Safe : The First UK Child Internet Safety Strategy. Among the report's recommendations are that lessons in the safe use of the internet should become compulsory in primary schools by 2011, and a framework for an online "green cross code" to enable children to block and report inappropriate content. For more information on the Strategy, take a look at this article, or for the results of a survey on children and parents' attitudes to internet safety, the DCSF has just published some new research.

Changes to Children's Play

Tonight sees the first of two episodes of Hop, Skip and Jump (see previous post for details), which charts the evolution of children's play during the 20th Century. If you're interested in this topic, the series' producer has also written a fascinating article on how "stranger danger" played a role in reducing opportunities for children to play unsupervised.

Social Work Task Force

Last week saw the publication of the final report of the Social Work Task Force, which was commissioned by the government to conduct a comprehensive review of the profession, and to make recommendations on the future direction of the profession. Among the conclusions are recommendations for social workers to require a license to practice, an overhaul of training, employers to agree standards on caseloads, and improved pay for experienced front-line staff. The government have accepted the report's conclusions in full.

The final report is available now, as is a summary version.

Writing Skills

The National Literacy Trust have been busy again, with a new investigation which has concluded that blogging and social networking sites can help improve young people's confidence and enjoyment of writing. The research, which was carried out in May with over 3000 pupils aged 9-16, also explores gender, age differences and the link between socio-economic background and writing. You can read the full text of Young People’s Writing: Attitudes, Behaviour and the Role of Technology online now, or a summary version is also available.

Hop, Skip and Jump

Next Tuesday (8th December) you might want to tune into BBC4 at 9pm for the first episode of Hop Skip and Jump: The Story of Children's Play; this is a 2 part series which examines childrens' outdoor games in Britain through the 20th century. Playing on the streets, children's songs and the differences between social classes and boys and girls will all be explored in the series. For further information, take a look at this article.

Family Trends and Policy

A new publication from the Family and Parenting Institute says that the nuclear family is breaking down, with relations outside of the family unit increasingly getting involved with parenting tasks. Other findings in the report highlighted the changing role of fathers, the increase in mothers that work, and a rise in the number of cohabiting couples. Although the full report, entitled Family Trends, is not available online, this speech from the Institute's Chief Executive summarises its main conclusions.

This month actually marks the 10th anniversary of the Family and Parenting Institute, which they have marked by releasing Ten years of Family Policy: 1999–2009, an excellent introduction to developments in this area in England over the past decade, with a lengthy references list for further reading. Those of our readers already working in this field may also be interested in the Institute's new booklet Knowing what you do Works: Measuring your Own Effectiveness with Families, Parents and Children: a Short Guide, and it's accompanying briefing sheet: Examples of Effective Measuring Tools.

Underachievement

Those of you with an interest in the attainment of children from ethnic minorities may be interested in a new review which suggests that teachers underestimate black pupils. The report - Black Children’s Achievement Programme Evaluation - was commissioned by the DCSF, and argues that teachers need to understand that different strategies must be employed to raise the attainment of different ethnic groups.

On a similar(ish!) note, another new research publication from the Centre of Policy Studies states that teachers are being asked to spend too much time fulfilling government initiatives with a detrimental effect on teaching quality; the report argues that white working class and black Caribbean boys are particularly affected. You can read the full text of Wasted online now.