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Children’s Plan

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement on the Children’s Plan made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary for State for Children, Schools and Families. The Statement is as follows: ““The first ever Children’s Plan, which we are publishing today, follows months of consultation with parents, teachers, professionals, and children and young people themselves, up and down the country. ““Over the last 10 years, the lives of children have improved. School standards are up and child poverty is down, while we have many more outstanding schools and many fewer failing schools. However, following our detailed consultations, the results of which I have laid before the House, I have concluded that we need further reforms to deliver a world-class education for every child; that we must do more to prevent children falling behind or failing to fulfil their potential because of learning difficulties, poverty or disadvantage; and that, while there are more opportunities for young people today than ever before, families want more help to manage the new pressures that they face in balancing work and family life, in dealing with the internet and modern commercialism and in letting children play while staying safe. ““The Children’s Plan is our response. First, Mr Speaker, there are new measures to support the learning of every child. The early years are critical. So as we raise the entitlement to free nursery care for all three and four year-olds from 12 to 15 hours, we will now allocate over £200 million over the next three years to ensure that young children get the highest-quality care in their early years, with at least two graduates in nurseries in the most disadvantaged areas, and we will extend the offer of free nursery places to 20,000 two year-olds in the most disadvantaged communities. ““School standards are rising, but I want to accelerate the improvement. I have therefore asked Sir Jim Rose to undertake a root-and-branch review of the primary curriculum to create more space for teaching the basics—English and maths, with a foreign language in all primary schools—and to ensure that all children start secondary school with the personal skills to succeed. If our Making Good Progress trials are successful, we will implement ‘stage not age’ testing nationally—the biggest reform to national curriculum assessment since its creation. ““To back our teachers, I am today allocating £44 million over the next three years so that all new teachers will be able to study for a masters-level qualification, and to establish a new Future Leaders programme to bring even more talented people into teaching. ““Supporting parents is central to this Children’s Plan. In future, every parent will have a record of their child’s development and education through the early years and into primary school, and the Minister for Schools will consult parents and schools over the next few months, and legislate if necessary, to ensure that every child has a personal tutor who stays with them as they progress through secondary school; every parent receives up-to-date information about their child’s progress, attendance and behaviour, using ‘real time’ reporting and new technologies such as mobile phones or the internet; and, so that parents know what they can expect, how they will be consulted and how they can express concerns and complaints, every secondary school will have a parents’ council. ““Parents also want earlier intervention if their child falls behind. Alongside one-to-one support for reading and maths at primary school and our new Every Child a Writer programme, I am allocating £18 million over the next three years to improve initial teacher training about special educational needs and to find new ways of identifying dyslexia earlier. Following the Bercow review, Ofsted will lead a full review into our special education needs provision in 2009. ““In our consultation, head teachers told us that schools need more support from other services to tackle all barriers to learning. Today, one in 10 children has a diagnosed mental health problem, but schools repeatedly say how hard it is to get the CAMHS children’s mental health service to engage with them early enough. So I have agreed with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health that we will launch a review of CAMHS to investigate how it can work better with schools and to identify where early support is most needed. Our two departments will also produce the first ever child health strategy in the spring. ““We will also enhance inspection across schools and children’s services and examine whether children’s trusts arrangements need to be strengthened, including through further legislation if necessary. To further improve services for parents and to enable better early intervention, we will publish new guidance for Building Schools for the Future to ensure that, where possible, schools are designed with other services—health, police, social care, advice and welfare services—collocated with them. Because schools must be sustainable for our children and their children, we will now set a new ambition that all new schools will be zero-carbon by 2016. ““With the reforms that I have announced to the House to tackle failing and coasting schools, to expand the academies and trusts programme, to raise the education leaving age to 18 and to introduce new diplomas, this Children’s Plan sets us on course to deliver ambitious, long-term goals for a world-class education for every child. ““Discipline in schools is essential for raising standards. We have given teachers new powers to tackle bad behaviour and 97 per cent of schools are now in behaviour partnerships, co-ordinating behaviour and exclusions policy, which Sir Alan Steer’s report recommended should include all schools by 2008. I am minded to implement that recommendation and I am now asking Sir Alan to assess progress on all his proposals and to make recommendations in the spring. We will also strengthen the regulation of pupil referral units, improve the quality of provision and pilot a range of alternatives, including this being one role for studio schools. ““To break cycles of reoffending among young people, the Home Secretary and I are together allocating £66 million over the next three years to target support at young people most at risk of getting into crime. As we prepare our youth crime action plan, we will reform the education and resettlement of young offenders and pilot the use of restorative justice from April 2008. ““Our consultation reports that, although parents are clear that it is their job to bring up their families, they want more information and support to help them to keep their children safe and healthy. Our Children’s Plan includes provision of £167 million over the next three years to fund two new expert parenting advisers in every local authority area, expand family learning, support young carers and deliver new support for families with disabled children. ““Dr Tanya Byron is investigating the potential risks to children from harmful or inappropriate material on the internet and in video games and will report next March. In the spring, we will make proposals on young people and alcohol and investigate how the huge increase in commercial activity, advertising and marketing aimed specifically at children and young people is affecting their well-being. ““I have two further announcements. In our consultation, children and young people told us that they want more places in which to play and interesting things to do outside school and that they want to be recognised for their achievements. ““Earlier this year, the Minister for Children set out our 10-year strategy for young people, with an ambition of new youth facilities and places for young people to go in every constituency of the country, funded by proceeds from unclaimed assets and new investment from my department. However, I want us to start transforming youth services now. So, prior to the unclaimed assets legislation taking effect, we will invest an additional £160 million over the next two years to develop high-quality youth facilities for young people, shaped by young people themselves. This could mean 50 new state-of-the-art youth centres, 500 refurbished youth centres or more than 2,000 smaller-scale centres, including mobile units. The funding will be available for every part of the country starting in April and I urge all honourable Members to start working with young people, the voluntary sector and their local community to draw up local plans. ““Finally, to help parents to keep their children safe while they are playing outside, I can also announce that we will launch a new national play strategy early next year. To make this a reality, and starting next April, we will build 30 safe and supervised adventure play parks in disadvantaged areas. With a total investment of £225 million over the next three years, we will also be able to build or upgrade more than 3,500 play areas across the country—an average of 23 per local authority and seven per constituency, the largest government investment in children’s play in our history. ““With schools, children’s services, the voluntary sector and the Government all playing their full part and meeting their responsibilities, and with the £1 billion over the next three years that we are allocating to meet our Children’s Plan commitments, we can unlock the talents and promote the health and happiness of all children, and not just some; back parents as they meet their responsibilities to bring up their children; and intervene early so that no child or young person is left to fall behind. Making our country the best place in the world for children to grow up is the mission of this Government and of this Children’s Plan””. My Lords, I commend the Statement to the House.