The Children's Plan: Building Brighter Futures

January is traditionally a time for new years resolution and it seems fitting that the Children's Plan with its focus on more exercise, healthy food and spending more time with families should be launched at this time of year.

A result of consultation, which took place in the latter half of 2007, it responds to the key concerns of parents. It then ties those issues closely to current government strategies and policies, thus creating a useful narrative to accompany recent policy development in education. These include 2020 Vision, the raising of the learning leaving age from 16 to 18 and the introduction of The Independent Safeguarding Authority, a new body to oversee the checking of those who work with children.

The main aims of the Children's Plan are to:

• Strengthen support for all families during the formative early years of their children's lives;
• Take the next steps in achieving world class schools and an excellent education for every child;
• Involve parents fully in their children's learning;
• Help to make sure that young people have interesting and exciting things to do outside of school; and
• Provide more places for children to play safely.

It also outlines a new leadership role for Children's Trusts in every area, a new role for schools as the centre of their communities, and more effective links between schools, the NHS and other children's services so that together they can engage parents and tackle all the barriers to the learning, health and happiness of every child.

Results from the Learning to Learn project were fed into the Gilbert review, which led to the 2020 Vision document which has in turn influenced the personalised learning agenda of the Children's Plan. So Learning to Learn teachers are directly influencing government thinking in what appears to be a positive way. Learning will be personalised to the needs of individual children. Many teachers will welcome the trying out of 'stage not age' testing that allows for testing when a child is ready.

Learning to Learn research has clearly shown the importance of parental involvement in schools. The importance of this relationship between schools and parents is recognised in the Children's Plan and highlighted in a number of initiatives, including; parent held records of their child's progress, parent councils and more money invested in family learning so parents can improve their skills. Schools will be offered more support in dealing with bullying and extending the safer school partnerships.

There is also recognition that teachers in the country are "among the best in the world". The Children's Plan recognises the value of teachers' training and abilities and "wants teaching to become a masters degree profession". We hope that will mean more opportunities and funding for training and recognition of the research capabilities demonstrated by the skilled teachers and leaders that are involved in Learning to Learn.

Some of the promises to increase reporting to parents, tackle bullying, and offer more extended schools activities will increase the work load of many schools and teachers and we hope this is valued and accounted for. There may also be debate around the academic and vocational divide with increasing provision been made to offer more choice for 14 - 19 year olds, yet the traditional view of A levels as only for 'bright' pupils still remains. This may affect parents' perception of their child's choices for training and development. Versions of the Children's Plan have been developed for Children and for Families and can be found at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/childrensplan.

We at the Campaign for Learning would be interested in feedback on the Children's Plan from teachers, schools and parents involved in Learning to Learn research. Please send responses to Lisa Vernon, Head of Policy and Research at lvernon@cflearning.org.uk

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