Editorial/Opinion

Coming together to ensure every child is included, regardless of background, challenge or need

Achievement for All in partnership with Oxford University Press

Blog by Sonia Blandford

The Achievement for All national conference brings together experts, teachers and leaders from across the education world, from early years to post 16, to explore how we can collectively make a difference to all children and young people. Together with Oxford University Press, we’re delighted to be welcoming an exceptional group of speakers, practitioners and representatives from the Department of Education, including Sir Kevan Collins CEO of Education Endowment Foundation, Dame Alison Peacock CEO, Chartered College of Teaching and Andy Cope of The Art of Brilliance.

At the conference delegates will focus on evidence informed strategies for: 

  • Achieving best value and highest impact from your Pupil Premium allocations
  • Improving resilience, outcomes and employability for all children and young people
  • Improving staff well-being and morale.

Key Concepts / Strategies addressed in this special conference edition of Every Child Journal are: 

  1. Building “core strength” in all children and young people 
  2. Improving progress and reducing exclusions 
  3. Achieving best value and highest impact from your Pupil Premium allocations
  4. Improving resilience, outcomes and employability for all children and young people
  5. Improving staff well-being and morale
  6. Every Child Included.

In this editorial, I will provide an introductory analysis as to how every child can be included by following the 4As framework, developed from practice across the seven countries featured in the publication launched at the conference, Achievement for All in international classrooms

Jim Collins is not normally referred to in any education editorial.  Jim Collins spent many years looking at businesses and researching what made them great.  His conclusion, greatness is not a function of circumstance.  Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline.  

If we are to aspire for every child, if we are to have aspirations, it’s a conscious choice.  In schools and early years settings we all know that we need to develop a culture of high expectations for all children – that’s every child, every day, every lesson in every week.  Aspiration is for every child to have an understanding, a belief inside them that they can achieve, that they can succeed, it’s the ‘I can’, an understanding as to how they reflect on themselves in a positive, meaningful way.  Aspiration is not thinking about what they are going to do when they leave school or college, and it is not about thinking that they are going to be the best dancer, the best footballer, the best singer or the best popstar.  Aspiration is about the here and now – the ‘I can’.

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