Every Child Matters

A NIACE Response to the Department for Education and Skills’ Consultation on the Green Paper Every Child Matters (Cm 5860)

1. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) works to encourage more and different adults to engage in learning of all kinds. Its functions include research, development and consultancy; advocacy to inform and influence public policy; information services and dissemination; campaigning for, and celebrating the achievements of, adult learners. Established in 1921, NIACE is an independent non-governmental organisation, a registered charity (No. 1002775) and company limited by guarantee (No. 2603322). Its corporate and individual members come from all sectors concerned with adult learning: colleges; local authorities; universities; voluntary and community organisations; churches; broadcasters, employers and unions. NIACE and the National Youth Agency (NYA) also work with young people through the Young Adult Learners’ Partnership.

2. Every Child Matters adopts a holistic approach to fulfilling the potential of children and young people by recognising the key role of parents, carers, families and communities. NIACE is responding to the Green Paper because it believes that there is a key link between adult/parental confidence and children and young peoples’ performance and well-being. Research has shown that adult learning and family learning both increase adults’ confidence. NIACE believes, and the Government’s own initiatives such as Sure Start endorse, that improving the confidence and abilities of adults/parents will have a lasting impact on children - and on their educational success in particular. Family learning has a key role to play in school improvement strategies at both primary and secondary levels.

3. A positive attitude towards learning is important in enabling people to overcome disadvantage and respond to economic, social and personal challenges as they move through life. NIACE has a strong interest in family learning as it acts as a powerful stimulus to develop a culture of lifelong learning amongst both adults and children. Family learning also has a proven track record in attracting parents back into learning and engaging parents in their child’s development. Good quality family learning is also associated with raising children’s own skill levels and improving family relationships.

4. NIACE uses the term ‘family learning’ to encompass a wide range of informal and formal learning activities that involve families developing an understanding of, and the skills involved in, family roles, relationships and responsibilities. ‘Families’ are understood to include not just parents and children, but also grandparents and other relatives, together with other adults who may be involved in caring roles such as foster parents and childminders. Formal family learning encompasses adults and children learning together, or sometimes separately, as part of a planned programme of activities. Informal family learning is based on learning practices within the home and the neighbourhood, and includes a range of activities such as parents reading with their children, playing games, painting, drawing and other intergenerational activities - for example grandparents and grandchildren making sense of family history.

5. NIACE warmly welcomes the Green Paper and its focus on fulfilling the potential of every child, together with dealing with the important issue of child protection. Like the NYA with which we work closely, our experience suggests that the Government is right to favour an holistic approach to developing children and young people in the context of their families and communities. We are particularly pleased that the need for enhanced support and services for the key role of parents and carers has been recognised, and that Extended Schools and Children’s Centres are being seen as key ways of delivering these services.

6. NIACE particularly welcomes the proposal that family learning programmes could become a universal service, “open to all families as and when they need them.” This is well-deserved recognition of the ability of family learning to engage parents in their children’s education and to help children fulfil their potential. However, it does not go far enough. We believe that good quality family learning should become a universal service because of the multiple benefits it offers children, parents and families. However tight the forthcoming spending review, family learning represents excellent value for money not only because of the contribution it can make to the agenda identified in Every Child Matters but also because it supports other policies from school standards and extended schools through to learning communities and neighbourhood renewal.

7. We outline below why and how a broad and balanced family learning curriculum offers the greatest chance that all children are able to fulfil their potential and that all adults are able to increase their confidence and skills. NIACE believes that more could and should be done to encourage more and different families to participate in family learning, including more grandparents, more black and ethnic minority (BME) families, more foster families, and more families where either the parent(s) and/or children have learning difficulties and disabilities. Family learning has great potential and the Government is currently failing to recognise this fully. Finally, in light of the proposals to create a Director of Children’s services responsible for local authority education and social services, NIACE also raises important strategic questions about the focus, management and organisation of family learning at national and local level.

8. Children’s policy that develops in isolation from the needs and circumstances of parents and other care providers will always be impoverished and incomplete. Family learning provides the bridge through which the needs of children and the needs of adults can be held equally central and can be met together - and where this is so, the impacts on health, welfare and educational success are marked. NIACE calls on the Government to make a serious commitment to family learning as part of Every Child Matters.

9. Research and evaluation have proven that family learning provides a range of benefits to both adults and children. The Department for Education and Skills’ (DfES) recently published literature review by Professor Charles Desforges with Alberto Abouchaar (June 2003) showed that home learning, or informal family learning was the biggest influence on the educational achievement of children aged 3 to 7. The Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) (2000) survey of formal family learning reported the following benefits for children from participating in good quality family learning: positive behavioural and attitudinal change, enhanced confidence and self-esteem, accelerated development of oracy and pre-literacy skills and improved standards in numeracy and literacy. In terms of benefits for parents, the following were reported: increased confidence in contacts with schools and teachers, leading to more active partnerships with schools, improved parenting through a greater understanding of child development and of the strategies that can be used to help children, and better family relationships. These benefits identified by OFSTED are very close to the range of protective factors that Every Child Matters lists as helping children overcome disadvantage. Furthermore, the OFSTED (2000) survey also reported progression for over 50 per cent of adult participants to further education and training or more challenging jobs. This helps to meet the important objective of safeguarding children from “being prevented by economic disadvantage from achieving their full potential in life.”

10. Family learning also compares favourably to the other potential universal services listed in Every Child Matters. This is because it can achieve many of the objectives listed of the other potential universal services. For example, the green paper states that the Government needs to look at opportunities for families to become more closely involved in school life. Yet one of the benefits of formal family learning, as identified by OFSTED (2000), was improved communication between parents and schools. Furthermore, the NIACE (2003) Evaluation of LSC Funded Family Programmes reported examples of learners on family learning programmes going on to become more closely involved in school life through becoming class room assistants or school governors. Similarly, a range of family learning programmes has been developed at local level to support the green paper’s objective of developing positive relationships between fathers and children, including absent fathers.

11. This is not to say that other forms of parental support, such as a national helpline, and specialist parenting support services for those with particular needs are not helpful or are not required. Rather that NIACE believes that good quality family learning, if adequately funded, can meet a wide range of aims and objectives and therefore offers better value for money than some of the other universal services proposed in the green paper.

12. Family learning is currently focussed on family literacy, language and numeracy (FLLN). NIACE recognises that improving literacy and numeracy skills in a family context is important in its own right, and in order to help achieve the Government’s Skills for Life targets. However, we believe that family learning has considerably more to offer than its current, somewhat, narrow focus. This view was echoed by policy-makers in many key national organisations, as reported in our Evaluation of LSC Funded Family Programmes (2003).

13. When the Government consulted children, young people and families, a variety of important outcomes were highlighted as being important to children and young people’s lives and development. These outcomes included being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, economic well-being, and making a positive contribution. Family learning is well placed to help achieve many, if not all, of these outcomes. NIACE strongly believes that it would be beneficial to children, young people and families to develop a broad and balanced family learning curriculum. This would embrace the benefits of family learning highlighted above, but also address the issues that are most important to children, young people and families, develop children’s skills for adulthood and support parents and carers. At present, while there is a wide range of family learning programmes helping to meet these objectives, they are not embedded across all Local Education Authorities nor are they adequately supported. For example, there are good examples of family learning programmes in health, sports, the arts and parenting. There are also some less common examples of family learning in emotional literacy and communication and drugs awareness, and the embedding of basic skills in different subject areas. Similar to recent developments in FLLN, namely the Skills for Families initiative, we believe that there is a need for increased funding to further develop these programmes at ground level and to promote good quality and effective practice. NIACE also believes there should be a more level playing field in LSC funding between FLLN and wider family learning and that LEAs should be given more flexibility as to how that funding is used.

14. A broad, balanced and embedded family learning curriculum will also help attract a wider range of families and adults into learning, including fathers, grandparents, BME families, foster families, and those with learning difficulties and disabilities. (OFSTED (2000) and NIACE (2003) reported that a broad family learning curriculum has greater success in attracting participants from disadvantaged and under-represented groups. Anecdotal evidence shows that men can be switched off by a focus on basic skills but respond positively to family learning opportunities based on sports and technology and innovation, whether basic skills are embedded or not.) We also believe that a broad family learning curriculum will help develop a genuine appreciation of the benefits of learning that will be passed down generations and can help make links to the wide variety of government agenda and targets that family learning can contribute to, but that are currently not fully recognised.

15. The green paper states that the Government will legislate to create a Director of Children’s Services with responsibility for local authority education and children’s social services. This is in order to move to a system locally and nationally where there is clear overall accountability for services for children, young people and families, (one of which is education), and integration of key services around the needs of children. In NIACE’s view, this reinforces the need to address a number of strategic issues about the focus, management and organisation of family learning at national level and local level, some of which were raised in our evaluation of LSC funded family programmes (2003).

16. This evaluation highlighted a lack of clarity at both practitioner and policy level about the aims and objectives of family learning. This was particularly evident in relation to whether the main policy focus of family learning should be on adults’ achievements, particularly in relation to the Skills for Life targets, on supporting children and raising their attainment, or (as NIACE believes), whether both are equally important and mutually reinforcing. Our evaluation recommended that a clear and enabling national framework or strategy should be developed, outlining and promoting the multiple benefits of family learning and their interactions with key Government strategies, clarifying the main focus of family learning and stating where overall responsibility lies at national level. In our view the publication of Every Child Matters only serves to heighten the need for a flexible national framework that enables LEAs and other providers to confidently develop locally responsive services in a strategic manner.

17. In terms of organisation of family learning services at local level, a number of specific questions need to be addressed. Most family learning currently sits within adult and community education services, although a small number do sit within existing children and family services or early years services. It is not clear whether the majority of LEAs will feel it is best to relocate their family learning services following the appointment of a Director for Children’s services. This may have implications if the green paper is serious about achieving its aims of Children’s Trusts and effective communication and liaison between all professionals who come into contact with children. Family learning tutors, who are not mentioned in the green paper, often build up considerable trust with parents and families and should not be left out of a loop of education and social services professionals whose objectives are to keep every child safe and fulfil their potential.

18. Related to this, there are questions around workforce development for family learning professionals. The green paper proposes a common core of training for those who work solely with children and families and those who have wider roles. A Sector Skills Council for children and young people’s services will develop a workforce strategy for those who work with children. Aside from the issue that family learning, similar to other areas of work with children and families, faces problems in recruiting staff, Government should consider to what extent family learning professionals should be included in such a strategy. In any event, links should be made with current work that is being undertaken by NIACE, the Parenting Education and Support Forum (PESF) and PAULO, the National Training Organisation for community based learning (which will be subsumed within the new Lifelong Learning Sector Skills Council next year), to develop National Occupation Standards for family learning and parenting education.

19. NIACE would be pleased to discuss any aspect of this response with DfES officials. Please contact Jeanne Haggart, Development Officer for Family Learning (e-mail jeanne.haggart@niace.org.uk ), telephone 0116 204 4271 or Jackie Horne, Project Co-ordinator (e-mail jackie.horne@niace.org.uk ), telephone 0116 204 2851.

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