A Learning Ambition for Norfolk
What is the Learning Ambition?
We want Norfolk to be a county where all children and young people can flourish. Our ambition is that all children and young people are achieving their full potential and developing skills which prepare them for life. This is a key part of our Norfolk Flourish ambition.
Why do we need a Learning Ambition?
We know that there exist challenges within our education system, which affect outcomes for children and young people across the county. Over the course of the last year, we have been engaging with a wide range of education settings and stakeholders, to discuss the best way that Norfolk County Council can support a self-improving system.
Some of the priority challenges were identified as:
- Recruitment and retention of skilled staff
- Demands on support for Early Years learning
- The percentage of school pupils with SEND
- Increasing levels of challenging behaviour in Norfolk's mainstream schools
- Achievement at KS2
- Participation at post 16
We feel that our role as a Local Authority is to create the conditions for success within the system, facilitating joint pieces of work which help education providers to collaborate, support, challenge and learn with each other.
What does the Learning Ambition look like?
We want to be clear about our role in the education system and the areas in which we feel we can be most supportive, so that everyone understands how the system can work together.
Childrens Services is now engaged with a range of complementary strategies to address wider needs, all of which align with our Flourish ambition and which are designed to bring the system together.
These strategies are:
- The Learning Ambition
- Attendance is Everyone's Business
- Local First Inclusion
- Speech and Language Transformation
- Prevention & Early Help Strategy
- Mental Health Strategy
Within the Learning Ambition, we have worked with the education system to identify and agree some core themes. Each of these has work currently underway, and is based around collaboration with schools, colleges and settings to achieve its aims.
These themes are:
Capacity and Expertise of the Education workforce
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Ensuring Effective Transitions
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Improving Data and Information Sharing
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Supporting Resilient Families and Communities
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Enhancing the self-improving system through a Norfolk Collaborative Standard
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School, Colleges & Settings Communication and Engagement
To ensure that all of the above themes are as effective as possible, we are committed to redesigning the ways in which we communicate with schools, colleges and settings. This includes how, when and to whom we communicate key information and updates, support engagement and information sharing between providers, and how we make access to collaboration opportunities easier. This work is carried out with a reference group made up of representatives from across the education system in Norfolk, but we are always looking for more voices to contribute to making it as useful as possible; if you would like to join, or find out more, please get in touch.
Update, March 2024
Work is currently underway to redesign the current eCourier/Management Information system, to make information and updates easier to access and share.