The National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services –Formerly the National College for School Leadership

The National College for School Leadership has an expanded remit and has become the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services.
This evolution of the responsibilities of the college should provide a really useful catalyst to continue the evolution of thinking and action around the Every Child Matters agenda.

Joined up thinking and services are a key aspiration to ensure that each young person gets the support they need, when they need it. Some youngsters require more from support services than others, some for short periods and some for long periods of time.

Advances in ICT integration and infrastructure provides the opportunity for up to date key information to be available 24/7 to the professionals involved with each child. But how joined up are systems and how joined up are the decisions made by professionals when dealing with youngsters and their very individual issues?

Within the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, consideration of the Wider Children’s Services is a key strand of the new Partnership for School’s ICT Output Specification. School priorities and Local Authority Priorities for this strand require articulation to ensure that a prospective ICT Partner who will be providing the ICT services, will deliver a system to do exactly what is required.

Why wait for BSF though? Our engagements require clear Strategic Thinking around the use of ICT in schools and its integration with the Wider Children’s services. Much of this thinking can take place early within existing organisational reporting structures on policy and practice. A well thought out Educational ICT Strategy will ease the path to progress through the BSF programme and help to ensure that the right support gets to young people when they need it.

To learn about the work of the National College visit;
http://www.nationalcollege.org.uk/about-us

Brendan Geoghegan