Assessing School Impact on Vulnerability
Not just for the pandemic My career history has been in the charity and community sector delivering approaches to build capacity in communities considered ‘vulnerable’. Vulnerability – and often associated terms such as disadvantage and resilience – have their challenges… Read More »
Resources from Every Child Should
At Every Child Should one of the things we try to do is bring together research, great thinking and the real life experiences of school, communities and charities to help develop practice. We share this via blogs and newsletters and at our input into conferences and research. In response to requests we are pulling out some of this thinking into free downloadable resources.
Kids Adventure Books – Spark Their Imagination
It’s devastating to know that over 500,000 young people are missing out on their first residential this year. And as much as parents across the globe have taken on the task of home schooling, it’s safe to say that outdoor learning is going to be a part of the recovery for children and young people as we move back to a more ‘normal’ way of life. In the meantime though, it’s important that we engage them with colourful ideas for planning future adventures, connect them with wildlife and excite them with endless possibilities to explore the world around them.
Covid-19: Measuring the impact of school responses
I listened with interest to the Business as (un)usual: Supporting vulnerable learners through Covid roundtable (#CovidRoundTable). We heard of families pushed to the limits through social distancing, of vulnerable children without the safety net that schools provide and of the… Read More »
Residentials – unlocking the potential
Time away from home with your peers – the power of the residential is something I have written on often. I credit residentials at Hindleap Warren with both turning my life around (dodgy kid) and introducing me to a lifelong love of the… Read More »
A Free Pass for Families
I love the National Trust. Kids ran riot in several of their properties over the summer (sorry). And I was struck by their inclusion in this pretty sensible list of money saving tips for children’s holiday adventures. Indeed, National Trust… Read More »
Family Friendly Venues
As we look at access to cultural capital – to nature, arts, heritage, sports and the broadest range of social and enrichment experiences – we know that many families stand on the periphery. While there are – reasonable and important… Read More »
Every Child Should be Resilient
Resilience is currently a bit of a toxic word currently. The idea that we need to build young people’s resilience to ‘survive’ some of society’s contemporary challenges has hints of ‘victim’ blaming. Living in poverty – toughen up. Experienced trauma… Read More »
Princely Manhood and Character
Five-minute briefing on Hinds’ character consultation Damien Hinds (Secretary of State for Education) launches a consultation on character education In the consultation character is defined as: believing that you can achieve being able to stick with the task in hand… Read More »
Creating the ABacc – saving humanity
The purpose of education. There’s a question. And a route to twitter fisticuffs. Increasingly the answer appears both very narrow and very material – a focus on achieving a set of qualifications and on career pathways and earning power. Even… Read More »
Passport: an entitlement to enrichment
An entitlement to enrichment and the extra-curricular underpins much of our work. The notion of ‘passports’ as a method of prompting and supporting a broad range of experiences is a familiar approach. London Challenge – held up as one of… Read More »
Why the outdoors
We are still unpacking into our new home. And have just got to the box of pictures to put on the walls. As we started to unwrap the bubble wrap new eyes saw something we hadn’t realised before. Every family… Read More »
An ‘A’ ain’t all that!
Ahead of GCSE results tomorrow a plea. Let’s have the stories of the ‘straight 9s’ – that still doesn’t sound quite right – and credit to those students and their teachers. But let’s not repeat last week’s dearth of tales… Read More »
Do you want the good news…..?
At face value it has been an encouraging two months in policy terms for those of us interested in a rich and rounded curriculum. Much ‘good news’. The OFSTED ‘leak’ in last week’s Sunday Times (for leak read ‘testing the… Read More »
Why Outdoor Learning
People seem to know that being outdoors is good. They ‘feel it’. And teachers who have embraced outdoor learning reflect back the impact on both academic success but also wider skills and child well-being. There is a growing body of… Read More »
Flamingo 50 (the results)
This list was compiled by attendees at the Cambridgeshire Education Festival 2018. For the background https://everychildshould.uk/flamingo-50/ Attendees were asked about an entitlement of experiences and enrichment activity for every young person. To form a ‘passport’ for every child to adulthood.… Read More »
Flamingo 50
I am speaking this weekend at the Cambridge Festival of Education, probably the most optimistic education festival in the world! Creating the Flamingo 50 There are 14 fabulous workshops so I suspect I may be in a room with a… Read More »
What can education learn from the Police?
Who decides who teaches what, to who and how? This is not a new question. There is much debate around the prescriptive nature of the qualification frameworks, the impact of the EBACC on other areas of education, the expansion of… Read More »
Every Child Should… Learn Philosophy
As I walk up the stairs to our office above the public library in Forest Hill, there is a sign warning climbers to ‘Mind your head’. I like seeing this little reminder each day, but, being the co-CEO and co-founder… Read More »
Every Child Should – leave school literate
Every Child Should leave school literate. Few would disagree. And through various roles it is a goal I have worked to support my entire career. But meetings and events of the last week have reminded me of some of the… Read More »
It takes a village: schools as a universal point of delivery
We are regularly asked why the campaign is called Every Child Should. And the official (and true) answer is because we are leading a debate about entitlement – what is it that every child is entitled to experience, learn and have… Read More »
Effective use of Teaching Assistants
I was delighted to Chair the Westminster Briefing event on Effective Use of Teaching Assistants. It was great to hear from speakers including Jon Richards at Unison and Katie Harrison from ATL on the value of Teaching Assistants and from… Read More »
Has the extra in extracurricular become exclusive?
Evidence shows that extra curricula activities make a difference for children and young people, but what happens when the extra-curricular is actually addressing gaps in the curriculum. One of the underpinning principles of Every Child Should is that those who need the skills and experiences of extra-curricular and enrichment activities are often those that have least access.
School Exclusion – the story so far
The Department for Education have confirmed a review of school exclusions – and Edward Timpson is back to lead it. Education Secretary Damian Hinds has stated that the review has come about due to higher exclusion rates in recent years… Read More »
Culture and Heritage – an entitlement to access
Like so many areas being considered through Every Child Should the positive impact of engagement with cultural and heritage education is well evidenced. A positive impact on learning, on health and well-being, on belonging, on career opportunities and on the joy of… Read More »
5 reasons why schools should have an Edible Playground
Edible Playgrounds transform school grounds into vibrant teaching gardens, immersing children into a whole new world of growing and eating healthy, delicious food. With an edible playground at your school, your pupils will benefit from fun, engaging lessons that support the school curriculum, and get excited about their health. Here are five reasons why you should make sure your school is in with a chance of getting a fresh, immersive outdoor learning space.
School Travel Organiser (secondary) – February 2018
Anita Kerwin-Nye’s article in School Travel Organiser (go to page 60) offering advice for teachers planning school trips with mental health and wellbeing in mind.
School Travel Organiser (primary) – February 2018
Anita Kerwin-Nye is quoted in School Travel Organiser (go to pages 23-24) is quoted in an article in response to the Prime Minister’s pledge to increase the number of environment linked school trips.
Every child a bank account?
As part of our work on Every Child Should we have been talking to young people and those that work with them and reviewing many reports on what children and young people should have achieved and experienced by the time… Read More »
Turning the page for adventure
Part of our work over 2018 is looking at the importance of outdoor learning and connections to nature for every child. Our own personal experiences as lovers of adventurous activities, combined with the work we have done over the years… Read More »
School Travel Organiser: Campaigning for Change
Anita Kerwin-Nye and Matt Overd talk to School Travel Organiser (go to pages 22-23) on why every child should have access to school trips and on the wider Every Child Should campaign.
DEFRA 25-year plan and the importance of nature for well being
As someone who has publicly acknowledged the impact connections to nature in supporting my own struggles with mental illness it was pleasing to see the formal acknowledgement from DEFRA of the importance of outdoor experiences on mental well-being.
Schools Week: Is the battle for SEND inclusion won?
The strength of consortiums in affecting change is a core principle of Every Child Should. As is the belief that all children should be included in all aspects of education. In her recent piece for Schools Week Anita Kerwin-Nye talks about the change affected by Whole School SEND in the battle for inclusion.
TES: Trust in charities to find the right way forward
With collaboration between schools and charities being a key theme for Every Child Should see Anita’s recent opinion piece for TES (subscription required to view full article) on what schools can learn from charities.
Creative Schools Symposium
One of the things about advising on grant making is that you don’t often have a chance to see how the funding decisions translate from paper application into real life practice. It was therefore a particular pleasure to attend the… Read More »
5 Questions for Inclusion
The work of Whole School SEND is predicated on 3 key principles: That a Review based methodology can help schools and individuals identify areas for development, That there is much good practice and evidence of what works, That developing a… Read More »
Inclusion – someone else’s problem
Someone somewhere is still illegally excluding children. Someone somewhere is – consciously or not – making their school less attractive to learners with SEND so that they go elsewhere. Someone somewhere decides that pupils with SEND are the first to suffer from budget cuts (hurray to the first school that chooses to cut GCSE physics rather than support for SEND learners).
Children in Need
“Anyone else watching #childreninneed & wondering why people have to fundraise for things that our most vulnerable children should get from the state?”
Turns out from this throwaway Friday night tweet that – yes – quite a lot of people.
The outdoors – an entitlement
Anita Kerwin-Nye leads the Every Child Should Campaign and is a key note speaker at the CLOtC conference on 16 November 2017. Ecotherapy. I confess I rolled my eyes at the title. An attempt to medicalise the language attached to… Read More »
Teachwire – February 2018
Anita Kerwin-Nye asks ‘was the Children’s Commissioner’s report on vulnerable children the most important of 2017?’ in her teachwire article: Vulnerable Children – Who are They, and How do we Best Offer Support with Scarce Resources?
Journal of Education in Museums – No. 38 (2017)
Enrichment or Entitlement? How can museums work with schools to ensure that all children benefit form the transformative nature of museum learning?
The Journal of Education in Museums (JEM) is published annually. The current issue is only available to members of GEM,
