I started the day at the Attendance Strategy Team Service Development Day at Castle Grove...

I had been invited by my colleague Jancis Andrew who leads the service to talk about the future, the challenges we face and the opportunities to continue to build brilliant provision for young people. These colleagues have worked incredibly hard over the last year and achieved great things in so many areas. Their work lies at the heart of our challenge to achieve outstanding results for our children and young people with over 1000 children who are pesistently absent in our primary schools and over 3000 young people who are persistently absent in our secondary schools. We all know that the quality of provision and the quality of teaching in most of our schools is good and that if children and young people attend regularly and work hard consistently they will succeed. Our challenge for those young people on free school meals, those who are destined to become the NEET cohort and those who live in poverty is can we get them to attend regularly, work hard and achieve. This group of colleagues are part of the glue that connects things together, a key piece of the jigsaw puzzle that connects around schools and families and children to make great children's services.
Chris