Local authorities and
Community cohesion
Local Authorities can add significant value to
the work schools will be doing to develop and evaluate teaching and
learning programmes designed to support the duty to promote
community cohesion.
Local Authorities can help a school
demonstrate:
- that it understands the nature of its own community
- that it has planned and taken an appropriate set of
actions
- that these actions have had an evident impact.
(Ofsted, 2008)
Ofsted requires schools to show
evidence that they have planned for community cohesion as part
of their objectives for continual improvement. Governors and school
senior managers will be engaged in formulating, implementing and
evaluating school policy.
Working with SLN can help schools progress
towards an ‘outstanding’ in the area of community cohesion. Draft
Ofsted guidance for inspections notes that an ‘outstanding’ school
is one where:
‘The school acts vigorously and
successfully, using the information from an incisive analysis of
its religious, ethnic and socio-economic context at local and
national levels to focus its exceptional contribution to community
cohesion.
It evaluates its work rigorously in
order to build on its many strengths.
The school’s actions have a markedly
beneficial impact on community cohesion within its local community
and beyond.
The school community is highly cohesive
and the pupils have a strong understanding of what is required to
maintain this state.’
The government White Paper, ‘Your child,
your schools, our future: building a 21st century
schools system’ also highlights the need for schools to work
in partnership.
‘No school can meet the needs of all its
pupils alone. Delivering the Pupil and Parent Guarantees will
require schools to work in partnership with other schools and with
wider children’s services in order to offer more by working
together than any one partner could alone and to provide better
value for money.’
SLN can support LAs by offering:
- facilitator training
- resources and tools to ensure that you can audit your schools for community cohesion provision
- guidance on Ofsted and DCSF guidelines on community cohesion
- tried and tested methods of working to enable you to share best practice with schools
- a post-audit planning meeting to evaluate and discuss findings
- access to the SLN network.