The Big Society: what role in it for extended services?
Posts submitted in this thread require the moderator's approval
| Author | Message |
|---|---|
|
Paddy 18 June 2010, 5:39pm |
Welcome to the Learning Exchange forum about how extended services will fit into the 'Big Society'. If you have any ideas, proposals, questions - anything at all - to say about the Big Society and where extended services might fit, please post them here. Meantime, do visit the Big Society pages in the Learning Exchange news and events section.
|
|
Jo 18 June 2011, 10:34pm |
Hi Paddy. Interestingly the Free School that I'm involved with has made community engagement and community focus a key strand of our offer to children and young people. The proposal that we have submitted to the DfE makes it clear that community work/engagement is part of our wider curriculum offer. |
|
Paddy 22 June 2011, 10:09am |
Jo, I'm so happy to see your gorgeous face there! And please keep us posted about how the free school does with its community engagement. I honestly think that headteachers and other people working in schools basically know, deep in their bones, that a school is less if it doens't have a community engagement focus. Every Child Matters may have been relegated to the shelf in policy terms, but it's DNA lives on. Take care you! |
|
Paddy 24 June 2011, 2:43pm |
I mentioned in a recent e-newsletter to members that I was puzzled by this extremely odd bit of news. I've dubbed it: Roll up young folk... oh, and don't forget your wallets! Let me know what you think. |
|
Jo 24 June 2011, 5:13pm |
We always knew there would be spanners in the works of the Young Citizen programme! Trouble ith charging is that it'll be the usual suspects who engage and those that could really benefit from the capcity building experience will again miss out. However having said that, AFC Bournemouth are delivering the Young Citizens Programme and its free to young people as the Football League have funded it. |
|
Jo 24 June 2011, 5:52pm |
I attended a presentation last week given by Ted Cantle from the Institute of Community Cohesion. He was talking to us about CoCo and the Big Society. He was saying that the government are still using the word 'cohesion' to describe places although the policy headline will be 'integration' with. He felt the definition of integration would be fraught and suggested some might see it just pertaining to minorities. He talked quite a bit about the Prevent agenda started by Labour and that this current gov tends to give a single focus to one particular community which then means some people see this one whole community as a problem. He was saying that we tend to see one community (for example the Muslim community is seen as one whole community when there are in fact many Muslim communities across the UK) when in fact there may be several communities. He talked about white communities feeling under threat and that the far right capitalises on this sense of loss. So they exacerbate some peoples sense that change is bad for us and we are victims so lets get them before they get us. He asked whether the Big Society is a vacuous concept or the means of buidling integration and togetherness ( I think the jury is still out), however he did say that people actually have a desire to part of a community (whatever that may look like). In terms of ES if people want to belong to a community, schools can help to foster that sense of belonging and place, bridging social capital across communities. Interestingly he mentioned Coventry City, Blackburn with Darwen and Waltham Forest LA's who have each rebranded themselves promoting the benefits of diversity and developing a sense of belonging. Coventry's strap line is Our City, Our People; Blackburn's is Many lives, many faces ... all belonging; Waltham Forest's is Waltham Forest 225,000 people I community. Ted talked about the role of school and much of what he said is exatly what some schools were successfully working toward as part of the ES agenda. He also pointed out that schools currently still have a duty toward Community Cohesion (the legislation hasn't changed yet!) and therefore if they continue to do what they started as part of the ES agenda they will be helping build the social capital that the governement talk about. |
|
Paddy 18 July 2011, 10:39am |
Hi Jo! Thanks for this reminder - indeed, Community Cohesion legislation hasn't yet changed - so local authorities and schools still have that duty to foster and promote it. We're keeping our eye on it. But I do agree - the jury is still out on what the Big Society IS, or what it COULD BE - nothwithstanding the many fine examples of how it has existed right under our noses in many communities for many years. It's such a big 'ask' of schools to be movers and shakers in building cohesive communities really, and I bet many headteachers would say they can only do so much and only in the immediate environs of their own schools - but I think they do so well when they do bear it in mind as a goal within their extended services strategy. But as Cantle says, muddying the waters with terms like 'integration' could make things tricky... |
|
Paddy 20 July 2011, 10:35am |
Promoting community cohesion: the role of extended services: This 2010 document is still absolutely relevant. (I've put it here in case anyone hasn't caught up with Jo Galloway's post about the Ted Cantle talk about community cohesion.) It has in it a clear definition of what community cohesion is and good examples of how schools in many areas, particularly disadvantaged areas, are using the extended services approach to help foster and build it in their communities. |
Please login or register to participate in the forum.