Education alliance for life chances
Delivery Plan 2023-2027
It might take a generation before Bradford’s most disadvantaged children have life chances which are equal to that of their peers. This bold and ambitious plan will require long-term structural change across the range of services and institutions which deliver support to Bradford’s children and families. EALC will secure our ambition through a series of manageable 3-5 year delivery plans.
1. Schools piloting innovative approaches to tackling childhood inequality
EALC will use its partnership with CAER to develop Bradford into a unique testbed for innovative solutions, which can be scaled to other areas. Cutting edge interventions developed by Bradford’s research community, which would otherwise be difficult to implement, will be piloted in education settings across the district. EALC will also connect schools to CAER so that they can make use of data, tools and research insights to improve health and education outcomes.
2. Schools leading data driven, place based partnerships
Our ‘Act Locally’ Convening Partnerships bring together schools, stakeholders and communities to work on solutions to local problems. Currently trialed in Keighley, Holme Wood, Manningham & Girlington we intend to scale and replicate to other areas. Each Act Locally area will:
- Agree a collective ‘Statement of Intent’ which will outline the targeted problem, and agree a set of implementable actions and key recommendations through a convening partnership. This will allow this partnership to secure permissions, resources and support.
- Use a ‘community budget’ to commission more support from local voluntary organisations that can support the identified issue.
- Develop designated schools and early years settings as community hubs for integrated ‘cradle to career’ support, which will allow families to more effectively access a range of support. CAER’s connected data will be used to share information more easily.
- Act Locally Convening Partnerships will have support from CAER researchers and academics with an interest in their identified issue. They will provide relevant data and research insights to help them make evidence-informed decisions
3. Tackling system wide, education issues
EALC will work across systems and organisational boundaries to convene commissioners and decision makers around key issues affecting pupils, and work within existing governance structures to achieve a coordinated response for schools. Examples of system wide education issues include:
- Improving school attendance
- Child health in schools
- Effective support for neurodiverse children
4. Tackling teacher recruitment, retention and training
Bradford’s education leaders state that teacher recruitment and retention is a top concern. We aim to secure financial investment to deliver this ambition and if successful we will make it a key priority to tackle within our first delivery plan. Our first #TeamBradford campaign will aim to stabilise, grow and develop our teacher workforce:
- We want to attract and retain more teachers for Bradford schools through an incentive campaign
- We want to support our children and young people to aspire to work in schools in the district themselves, to build an education workforce for the future.
- We want to work with partners to create credible Bradford career progression routes for teachers, supporting robust succession planning, all the way to Headship
- We want to provide teacher training that meets Bradford’s expressed local needs. Where possible this will include cross sector workforce upskilling.
On a shoestring budget we have begun to work on numbers 1, 2 and 3 and require financial investment to sustain these and start work on number 4.