The Entry Point to a Smart Education System
Governmental authorities, community and nonprofit organizations, religious institutions, and parents within a diverse neighborhood in central London--Tower Hamlets--work together in partnership to improve outcomes for children and youth across a range of educational, social, health, and economic indicators.

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Victoria’s case sparked outrage throughout England. In response, the Blair government commissioned a report that found that Victoria’s death might have been prevented. Police, social service agencies, and doctors had opportunities to protect her, but none did. “On twelve occasions, over ten months, chances to save Victoria’s life were not taken,” the report concludes.

The report recommended a complete overhaul of the way government agencies and organizations responsible for children, youth, and families operate, and the government adopted those recommendations in 2004 in a policy known as “Every Child Matters” and the 2005 Children’s Act. Under the policy, local authorities were required to develop a Children and Young People’s Plan for coordinating the multitude of organizations serving young people. This “integrated, front-line delivery” of services would be measured by a number of indicators around the five themes of the Every Child Matters agenda: Be Healthy, Stay Safe, Enjoy and Achieve, Make a Positive Contribution, and Achieve Economic Well-Being.

Parent and Community Partnerships

The incoming government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown reinforced the Every Child Matters agenda at the national level in 2007 by creating a new Department for Children, Schools, and Families. But responsibility for coordinating services rests at the local level. Each local authority appoints a Director of Children’s Services, who works with local agencies and community organizations to coordinate services and develop plans for improving outcomes for children and youths.

In Tower Hamlets, the Children and Young People’s Plan was published, signed, and agreed to by all providers in the borough in 2006. To oversee its implementation, the Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership Group was created. The group is chaired by Tower Hamlets Children’s Services and includes a number of community partners, including residents, head teachers, parent governors, young people, the local Learning and Skills Council, the Tower Hamlets Education-Business Partnership, the police, and the health sector.

In addition to the coordinated responsibility for public sector services in education, health, safety, and other areas, Tower Hamlets Children’s Services also funds many locally based organizations in the voluntary sector, from community development corporations offering adult education to mosques and churches providing after-school programs. Partners, as well as young people themselves, are involved in devising and assessing service delivery plans.

Work with the Annenberg Institute for School Reform

• The work of Tower Hamlets Children’s Services was featured in A Smart System in London: Voices in Urban Education 21. This issue looks in depth at the British Every Child Matters policy and how it works in practice in Tower Hamlets. It includes articles by articles by Robert Rothman, David Bell; Kevan Collins ; Helen Jenner; Glenys Tolley; Sir Alasdair Macdonald; Janice M. Hirota, Robert L. Hughes, and Ronald Chaluisan.
  
  
• AISR is one of the lead partners in the Transatlantic Schools Innovation Alliance, a partnership to improve teaching and learning by creating a small network of schools in New York City and London engaged in action research in adolescent literacy instruction.
  
  
• Leaders from the British government and from Tower Hamlets Children’s Services also participated in the 2008 Emerging Knowledge Forum. The panel led a discussion of the Children and Young People’s Plan and its implications for building smart education systems in other communities.