4.2 The Children's Plan and three major education acts in this period

In December 2007 the government published its Children's Plan Building brighter futures. This important and ambitious document was based on widespread consultation involving children, young people, parents, teachers and policy makers, and was designed to underpin and inform all future government policy relating to children, their families and schools. It aimed to eradicate child poverty and reduce illiteracy and antisocial behaviour by 2020

The plan was based on five principles:

• government does not bring up children - parents do - so government needs to do more to back parents and families;

• all children have the potential to succeed and should go as far as their talents can take them;

• children and young people need to enjoy their childhood as well as grow up prepared for adult life;

• services need to be shaped by and responsive to children, young people and families, not designed around professional boundaries; and

• it is always better to prevent failure than tackle a crisis later.

It set ten goals to be achieved by 2020:

• enhance children and young people's well-being, particularly at key transition points in their lives;

• every child ready for success in school, with at least 90 per cent developing well across all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile by age 5;

• every child ready for secondary school, with at least 90 per cent achieving at or above the expected level in both English and mathematics by age 11;

• every young person with the skills for adult life and further study, with at least 90 per cent achieving the equivalent of five higher level GCSEs by age 19; and at least 70 per cent achieving the equivalent of two A levels by age 19;

• parents satisfied with the information and support they receive;

• all young people participating in positive activities to develop personal and social skills, promote well-being and reduce behaviour that puts them at risk;

• employers satisfied with young people's readiness for work;

• child health improved, with the proportion of obese and overweight children reduced to 2000 levels;

• child poverty halved by 2010 and eradicated by 2020; and

• significantly reduce by 2020 the number of young offenders receiving a conviction, reprimand, or final warning for a recordable offence for the first time, with a goal to be set in the Youth Crime Action Plan.

The plan attempted to address a series of highly critical reports on British childhood by Unicef and others, and to demonstrate evidence of Gordon Brown's administration's much talked-of 'vision'. There would be new playgrounds and youth centres, personal tutors and one-to-one classes to give struggling pupils a chance to catch up and their parents a contact at school. There would be radical reform of the curriculum and testing regimes, and a mandatory master's-level qualification for all new teachers. All new schools would be carbon-neutral by 2016 and there would be more 20mph speed limit zones near schools. A dozen strategy reviews - on areas including drugs and alcohol, sex education, bullying and the commercialisation of childhood - would determine how the targets were to be met.

Children's campaigners welcomed the plan.

There were three major education acts in this period:

• 2008 Education and Skills Act;

• 2009 Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act;

• 2010 Children, Schools and Families Act (much reduced in scope because of the impending general election).

2008 Education and Skills Act

The Education and Skills Bill was jointly sponsored by DCSF and DIUS.

The Act (26 November 2008):

• raised the education leaving age to 18. Young people would be required to participate in education or training until their 18th birthday through:

- full-time education or training, including school, college and home education; - work-based learning, such as an Apprenticeship; or - part-time education or training, if they were employed, self-employed or volunteering more than 20 hours a week;

• rationalised the regulation and monitoring regime for independent schools and non-maintained special schools;

• improved careers education for 11 to 16 year olds;

• transferred responsibility for delivering the 'Connexions' service (which offered a wide range of support to young people) to local authorities;

• empowered local authorities to arrange learning difficulty assessments in a person's final year of compulsory education and up to the age of 25 for any young person who would benefit from one;

• placed a duty on the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to ensure the free provision of basic skills and first full level 2 qualification courses;

• placed a duty on the LSC to ensure that 19 to 25 year olds who were undertaking their first full level 3 qualification did not have to pay tuition fees;

• required school governing bodies to invite and consider the views of pupils on policy matters which affected them;

• gave young people the right to express a school preference for sixth-form education and to appeal against any decision made;

• required local authorities to produce annual reports on school admission arrangements in their area; and

• made minor changes to the legislative regime governing the National Curriculum so that, from 2009, Key Stage 3 tests would no longer be compulsory.

2009 Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act

This Act (12 November 2009):

• created a statutory framework for apprenticeships and a right to an apprenticeship for suitably qualified 16-18 year olds;

• gave employees the right to request time off for training, and required employers to consider such requests seriously;

• abolished the Learning and Skills Council;

• transferred responsibility for funding education and training for 16-18 year olds to local authorities;

• made provisions with respect to the education of offenders;

• created the Young Person's Learning Agency, the Skills Funding Agency, the Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulator (Ofqual), and a new agency to carry out the non-regulatory functions currently performed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority;

• strengthened the accountability of children's services;

• amended intervention powers in respect of schools which were causing concern;

• established a new parental complaints service;

• changed the school inspection arrangements;

• created a new negotiating body for support staff pay and conditions; and

• made provisions in respect of pupil and student behaviour.

The bill gave Ed Balls and John Denham 153 new powers.

2010 Children, Schools and Families Act

In the event, with the general election just a month away, all the sex education provisions (and many others) were lost from the Children, Schools and Families Act (8 April 2010).