The Children’s Plan was launched by government on 11th December 2007. The aims of the 170-page document are ambitious. There is a resolute determination in its pages to improve significantly the Every Child Matters outcomes for every child in the country. Closing the achievement gap and eradicating the post-code lottery of education and care for too many young people are at the heart of the plan. So too is the drive to raise standards of teaching and learning in all schools, and to improve children’s health and mental well-being.

The National Education Trust warmly welcomes the major thrust of the Children’s Plan and the resources that government is pledging to realize its ambitions. Children, young people and their families will be the beneficiaries if words are translated imaginatively into actions in early years’ settings, schools and colleges around the country. The Trust looks forward to playing its full part as a third-sector provider in education.

NET particularly welcomes what government has to say about long-overdue revisions to the national systems of testing. NET applauds recommendations to review school governance (see Roy Evans’s book ‘Who governs our schools?’) and to enhance training for new teachers and school leaders. NET is ambitious to see the end of the academic/vocational apartheid through the successful introduction of the Diplomas, and believes that the raising of the school leaving age to 18 is a necessary move within the coming years.

In the wake of recent international reports about the relative decline in standards of education and schooling in this country, the Children’s Plan and its accompanying promise of resources are timely.

Roy Blatchford

NET Director