Paper 1 - DCSF Children's Plan, DIUS strategy
developments - opportunity and challenge for Becta
Paper 1 - DCSF Children’s Plan, DIUS strategy developments –
opportunity and challenge for Becta
Introduction
1. This paper outlines the major opportunities and challenges for Becta arising from
the DCSF Children’s Plan and DIUS strategy developments, and provides
context for the Board’s discussions on future priorities and strategy development.
2. Taken together the breadth of the DCSF’s Children’s Plan and the strategic
support needed from DIUS represent a significant challenge to Becta.
Recommendation
3. The Board is invited to note the points made and offer further comments to help
develop our approach.
The Children’s Plan
4. Becta has worked with the DCSF on the technology aspects of the Children’s
Plan. Early in the Department’s work on the Plan, we met with Stephen Meek,
DCSF’s Director of Strategy. We agreed that we should aim to include a
reference to the role of technology in the Plan’s introduction, integrate references
to the role of technology throughout the body of the plan where appropriate, and
write a short ‘technology specific’ section. We worked through the ICT
Champions Group, the TFU and with Stephen Meek’s team to secure this input.
As a result, in the published Plan technology exemplification is moderately well
integrated throughout the body of the text. Although we would have liked to have
seen even more explicit references, and despite some obvious gaps, overall we
were pleased to have directly secured two significant paragraphs on page 106
which included the statement:
“Effective use of technology will underpin most of the activities in the Children’s
Plan… Becta will provide additional guidance next year, building on our
Harnessing Technology strategy, which will outline how this can be done….”
(p106).
5. As the Secretary of State says in his introduction “This first ever Children’s Plan
aims to put the needs of families, children and young people at the centre of
everything the new Department for children, schools and families does.” The
most striking feature of the Plan is that it contains new policies for children and
family life that reach well beyond the classroom, and sets out a vision of schools
as centres for social services and child welfare well beyond their traditional role
of teaching children and preparing them for qualifications.
6. This will be a challenge to the system, and the breadth of the plan is a significant
challenge to Becta to develop and implement a technology strategy to support it.
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Becta | Paper 1 - DCSF Children's Plan, DIUS strategy developments - opportunity and challenge for Becta
7. The plan is wide-ranging, with a large number of policies and initiatives with
ambitious goals that extend to 2020. The Executive Summary is attached for
reference. It will take considerable discussion with the Department, and further
analysis, to understand all that Becta needs to do to support this plan, but our
initial thoughts suggest the following key areas for early focus.
New policy developments on families
8. There is a strong emphasis on the family in the Plan and there are a significant
number of new policies and initiatives to support this. Many of these policies are
based on the provision of, and access to, much better information to and from
families; technology is rightly viewed as a key route for this. The evidence is that
technology is a more natural part of most families’ and children’s environment
than in schools, colleges and workplace training, and this offers many
opportunities for Becta to extend our reach, but of course the challenge is that
this will involve a wider focus than purely educational issues.
9. We will work closely with DCSF in a policy development role for this area but any
major expansions in our remit will come only once we have analysed what we
can usefully do.
Parental reporting
10. Our work this year has placed us at the heart of the debate on increasing
parental engagement with their children’s learning. The commitment to schools
providing parents with regular, up to date information on their child’s attendance,
behaviour and progress in learning and ministerial aspirations for real-time
reporting build naturally on our work in this area. As this work develops and
schools become more confident in managing data effectively, responsibly and
securely, and learning platforms become established in schools, real-time
reporting becomes a possibility. Some schools already offer parents the ability to
check on their children’s progress at any time online. Becta will continue to have
a central role supporting schools through guidance and examples of effective
practice, challenging the industry to produce fit for purpose products and services
and providing the department with the policy advice on moving to the next stage.
Increased focus on safety
11. Safeguarding the young and vulnerable remains a governmental priority and a
key area of public concern. Much of our work to date has focused on the
safeguarding issues that surround the use of technology in schools. The
progress made through our close working with the department on the Staying
Safe consultation, the Home Office, CEOP, Local safeguarding children’s boards
and the industry provides a firm basis for Becta to extend its work in two areas.
Firstly, the move towards universal home access and the Byron review’s focus on
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Becta | Paper 1 - DCSF Children's Plan, DIUS strategy developments - opportunity and challenge for Becta
the role of parents provides an opportunity for Becta, through the campaign, to
encourage greater parental involvement in their children’s learning online.
Secondly, not enough has been made to date of technology’s role in increasing
children’s safety, for example, by helping children keep in touch with parents,
school and each other. The publication of the Staying Safe Action Plan in early
2008 offers an opportunity to signal this positive role for technology.
Personalisation
12. The need for all children to receive teaching tailored to their needs and which is
based on their ‘stage not age’ remains at the heart of Government’s aspirations
for a world class educational system. We made the case for technology enabling
personalised learning in our response to the Gilbert review and the continued
high profile of this area presents a number of key opportunities for Becta. Firstly,
the increased flexibility at Key Stage 3 offers schools the opportunity to rethink
their curriculum, for example, moving towards the enquiry-based learning that
technology supports and extending learning beyond the school day. Secondly,
the move towards ‘when ready testing’ offers an opportunity for new assessment
approaches supported by technology, particularly if this is not to become overly
burdensome on schools. Thirdly, tailored teaching requires dynamic resourcing
through flexible learning and teaching materials, again these are best provided
through technology. Finally, the degree to which a school can respond to
individual need depends critically on how data, such as the results of the ‘when
ready tests’, is managed and used to plan teaching. All of this signals the need
for Becta to work closely with the QCA and NAA, building on existing work on eassessment, and to build on our recent work with school leaders on driving up
the quality of school management information systems.
World class buildings
13. The plan re-iterates the commitment to capital investment programmes, including
Building Schools for the Future and the Primary Capital Programme both of
which we are already engaged with, and the importance of these as drivers of
service quality, standards and community cohesion. The paper also mentions the
programme to build Sure Start Children’s centres and the Youth Capital Strategy
neither of which Becta has had much involvement in to date. It stresses the
importance of working with local authorities to ensure that the vision for
improvement is genuinely transformative and ensuring that all partners have the
capacity and skills to deliver the vision for new school buildings. Becta already
has a good working relationship with Partnerships for Schools and DCSF
Schools capital which needs to be maintained and developed. Plans are in place
to agree service levels with the DCSF to support these programmes and for
Becta to engage a regional team to work specifically with local authorities and
schools who are engaged in these major capital investment projects.
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Becta | Paper 1 - DCSF Children's Plan, DIUS strategy developments - opportunity and challenge for Becta
Sustainable environments
14. The Children’s Plan sets an ambition for all new school buildings to be zero
carbon by 2016 and for all schools to be sustainable schools by 2020. It
acknowledges the challenge in the designing and constructing new buildings and
developing new technologies to deliver increasingly low carbon buildings and is
appointing a taskforce to advise on how to achieve zero carbon schools and to
develop a road map to zero carbon schools. Becta is already part of an advisory
group for the Schools Carbon Reduction Strategy. Moving forward we should be
a major contributor to this debate and should expect to be involved in the zero
carbon taskforce. We need to develop our thinking and analyse on how our
strategies interface with sustainability policies.
New arrangements 14-19
15. There are significant benefits to be had from using technology in the delivery of
14-19 diplomas, including more effective delivery, opportunities for
personalisation and more choice for learners; but there is not a consistent
approach. We have been asked by DCSF to scope out a programme of work to
develop guidance and support to assist local partnerships in using technology
solutions to meet the various challenges of 14-19 which include a system-wide
approach to management information, system-wide interoperability and
addressing the limitations in rural areas. It is expected that this work will be
tendered early in 2008 to offer guidance from September 2008. This work will
cover both the management of legacy systems and the procurement of new
systems by members of consortia, the development of technical guidance and
advice to support 14-19 regional activity and providing case study support for
instances where technology is already effectively being deployed to minimise
rural issues.
Role of local authorities
16. The Children’s Plan sets out clearly the responsibility that local authorities have
for improving children’s services and how this role has changed, from provider to
strategic commissioner. They are able to intervene in any service, whether
provided by a school, a local agency or partner, or indeed by the authority itself,
where services are not being delivered effectively and recent legislation has
extended the local authority’s role in school improvement. The School
Improvement Partner, employed by the local authority, plays a key role in
challenging school outside the inspection cycle and for supporting action it takes
to improve. In future, this challenge and support will extend to coasting schools
as well as those with very low attainment.
17. Becta has, in local authorities, a set of local strategic partners, who will need to
understand the role that technology can play in supporting both the educational
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Becta | Paper 1 - DCSF Children's Plan, DIUS strategy developments - opportunity and challenge for Becta
and the wider children’s agenda. It will be important that there is both awareness
at local level and an effective dialogue from Becta to meet this need.
DIUS strategy developments
18. We have made good progress during recent months in developing our strategic
priorities to support DIUS strategic developments and engagement at senior level
with DIUS colleagues. Central to this is an increased need for strategic planning
and better understanding of the potential of technology enabled delivery chain for
FE and skills and an opportunity to link with regeneration activities. Work will
need to be done to condition the policy environment to incentivise the system,
using levers and incentives. HE provision within FE must offer a similar, if not
better, technology entitlement to its learners.
19. We have established a clear pathway to gain DIUS commitment and approval to
this strategy. On 12 December Jane Williams, accompanied by Tony Richardson
and Vanessa Pittard, presented a progress report on updating the e-strategy for
FE and skills to the DIUS FESG Senior Management Team; which was very well
received. There was good discussion with agreement that Becta leads the
development of DIUS’s technology strategy. These discussions will continue over
the next month or so as the strategy and implementation plan are finalised.
20. On 7 January Stephen Crowne will be meeting with Bill Rammell, accompanied
by Jane Williams and Tony Richardson, to discuss the developing technology
strategy for FE, Skills and Regeneration and the ‘Next Generation Learning’
campaign. The Minister will be guest of honour at the stakeholder launch of the
Next Generation Learning campaign on 10 January. We have contributed to a
DIUS submission for Bill Rammell on the work of Becta, formalising and
confirming Becta’s relationship with DIUS including routine meetings with the
Minister.
21. The Minister affirmed his support for Becta’s lead on developing e-strategy for
the whole system. He offered to lend his personal support in every way possible.
He invited Becta to develop proposals for a new learner entitlement and asked to
receive these in early February. He has invited Stephen Crowne to join his
Ministerial Standing Group on FE Reform. Becta has also been invited to support
DIUS in the development of a new strategy for informal adult learning.
22. The following areas have now been identified as key strategic priorities (using the
government’s public sector reform model) as we develop our thinking on the next
phase of the government’s e-strategy ‘Harnessing Technology’.
Users shaping services

Campaign for learners and employers to raise awareness of, and increase
demand for, learning through technology.
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Becta | Paper 1 - DCSF Children's Plan, DIUS strategy developments - opportunity and challenge for Becta


Through technology, ensuring that learning opportunities are available for the
‘digitally excluded’, and to disadvantaged learners and small businesses.
An online community of ambassadors for technology for skill, embracing
business and others.
Top-down performance management



Updating inspection guidance and training of HMI inspectors to assess
effective use of technology.
Review of the funding model to see if the incentives are right for delivering
technology-based productive and efficient services.
Workforce standards and regulations setting the standard for effective use of
technology.
Capacity and capability



Systematic national professional development programme and regional
support for workforce and leaders in the effective use of technology.
Aggregation of procurement for high quality, standardised goods and services
leading to increased value for money.
Digital Architecture to form a system-wide National Education Network (NEN)
including interoperable business and management systems.
Market incentives


A new strategy for the content market to drive up the standards of digital
resources and to increase their range and access.
Raising the quality of technology products and services available through by
setting standards and developing procurement frameworks.
January 2008
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