Welcome to the leveller, a new blog written by an experienced Sure Start Children’s Centre Manager.
Every child deserves an equal opportunity to succeed, and SureStart is a major attempt by government to intervene to increase opportunity and reduce inequality starting from birth. The leveller completely endorses this hypothesis and endorses the holistic, whole child coherence of the policy. However, as Sure Start Children’s Centres become part of the mainstream why is it that inequalities actually seem to be widening rather than reducing, and what are the reasons why SureStart has not lived up to its potential to make a step change in reducing disadvantage?
The leveller is aimed at people working within Children’s Centres, within early years or more generally people at large with an interest in increasing equality of opportunity and in ensuring that a child’s life chances are now determined before birth.
The house style of the leveller is interactive and argumentative, but not destructive. The one house rule is that personal abuse will not be responded to. There is much that is great about the SureStart programme, but the radical potential of the SureStart programme to transform the poorest children’s life opportunities has not been realised in a consistent way. Through the blog I will examine matters of research, policy, practice and attitude, looking at ways in which the barriers to the programme’s success may be taken down.
The leveller will reflect the truth as I see it, being both an attempt to look at the evidence and to articulate an emotional response to the reality of being a Children’s Centre Manager. For obvious reasons the leveller will remain anonymous.
Issues I will be examining in the weeks to come are:
Childcare: the hot topic of the moment. Why is childcare delivery through Children’s Centres in such trouble? How much Children’s Centre money is being diverted into supporting unviable childcare within Children’s Centres and what can be done to sort out the financial mess?
Early Years Education: Reggio vs Phonics. Have the pedagogues blown their big opportunity, too busy arguing over pet theories to grasp the great opportunity that has been offered to modernise and transform their sector?
Economics: Should Children’s Centres be agents of economic regeneration, facilitating employment opportunities for parents or are they manifestly not a welfare to work scheme?
Health: Why has the NHS got ideological and practical difficulties in engaging with Children’s Centres and what can be done to grab Primary Care Trust’s attention?
Secrets of their success: What makes a successful Children’s Centre and how can this formula be repeated?
Within the next week I will be posting a blog entry expanding on one of these issues. Please feel free to comment and to suggest additional topics for discussion.