News

Adviser calls on DfE to set up a single children and families strategy

With a new ministerial team at the Department for Education appointed, a former adviser to Michael Gove is calling for a joint parental engagement and family learning policy.
 PHOTO Adobe Stock
PHOTO Adobe Stock

Sam Freedman, senior fellow at the Institute for Government and former senior policy adviser at the Department for Education, says while there has been some investment in family hubs, which have many similarities to the Sure Start programme, it is yet to be seen whether the government under Liz Truss ‘pursues any of these policies with greater or lesser interest.'

He said, 'But there are now at least some foundations for considering how a unifying agenda around the theme of family learning and parental engagement could be revived.’

Freedman was an adviser at the DfE between 2010 – 2013 when Gove was education secretary. He has written a paper for Campaign for Learning setting out how family learning and parental engagement agendas can be revived to benefit learning at all ages. 

Campaign for Learning says it works for social and economic inclusion through learning, and is a specialist in engaging people in learning particularly through a family learning approach.

Bringing it all Back Home – Reviving and Unifying the Family Learning and Parental Engagement Agendas highlights the potential impact of interventions on pupils’ attainment as well as other critical issues, including mental health, children’s social care and pre-school education.

His paper argues that with a new prime minister and ministerial team there is an opportunity to bring together different streams of work, which aim to support children and families into a coherent strategy. These include pre-existing schemes and new initiatives, such as the Parent Pledge, family hubs and the Multiply programme.

Freedman said, ‘The new government should start with a single Children and Families Strategy that combines children’s social care, special education needs, mental health, parental engagement in education and family learning. A new Children and Families strategy should also unify family learning and engagement policy in England.

Full list of recommendations:

  1. The DfE should develop a single Children and Families Strategy that brings together policy on children’s social care; SEND; mental health; parental engagement and family learning. It should set out the relative roles and responsibilities of local authorities, other parts of local government, academy trusts, and central government.
  2. The Children and Families strategy should unify parental engagement and family learning policy in England. 
  3. The DfE should develop the ‘Parent Pledge’ set out in the white paper. This should involve an expectation on academy trusts to have a parents’ strategy; and should also offer a package of guidance and support to trusts based on the EEF evidence review and existing programmes.
  4. The DfE should invest a small amount of money to recruit parent support advisers to help trusts develop their strategies, within the Regions Directorate.
  5. The DfE should ensure that their current FE funding and accountability consultation does not reduce the availability of family learning programmes by forcing providers to focus on immediate labour market outcomes.
  6. The DfE should ensure that some family learning programmes are included within the mix of provision funded through the Multiply scheme. Mayoral Combined Authorities and Unitary Authorities should work together to develop programmes that have enough scale to be evaluated.
  7. The DfE should use the family hubs network to evaluate large scale parenting support and family learning programmes across multiple different hubs.
  • Download the report here