Back to school - targeting vulnerable children

The government has emphasised the need for schools to play their part in building brighter futures for all children. This means breaking the cycle of disadvantage experienced by many children from troubled families, helping more young people into meaningful work and narrowing the achievement gap between those from deprived backgrounds and their more affluent peers.

Children spend more time in school than in any other place apart from home so heads and teachers have the opportunity to make a real difference. But they don’t often have access to the information councils have available to them for identifying the groups of children the government wants them to target.

As the new academic year begins, authorities need to consider whether they could be giving schools much more information on the challenges their pupils face, both inside and outside the classroom. If a school knew which of their pupils came from families the council had identified as troubled, for example, or who was at risk of ending up Neet (not in education, employment or training) when they leave school, they would be able to monitor these children and take appropriate action to turn lives around.

The technology already exists that enables this kind of information to be shared simply and securely. It can even be set up to automatically alert schools if events unfolding in a child’s life put them at greater risk of ending up in crisis, or improve their life chances.

Having this data will make it easier for schools to identify and provide support for every vulnerable child in their care much earlier than they could before.

I’m aware of several authorities that are already piloting this approach in their schools and I’m looking forward to hearing about the impact it has had later in the academic year.

I’ll be sure to share the results with you in this blog and would be keen to hear your comments on what you feel is the most important information to share with schools to help them improve children’s lives.