Children and Young People

Updated May 2008

This theme sets out objectives for helping our children and young people achieve the five 'Every Child Matters' outcomes.

Vision

Children and young people are central to South Tyneside's vision of a "better future for South Tyneside's people". 

We want our young people to have new hope because they will have a bright future.

Our vision is to improve life chances for children and young people by making sure they are safe and that they have opportunities to be the best that they can be.

Policy story

UK government policy is now focusing on ensuring that children and young people achieve the five outcomes:

  • Be Healthy
  • Stay Safe
  • Enjoy and Achieve
  • Make a Positive Contribution
  • Enjoy Economic Well Being

The government wants to make this country the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up.

The recent ten year Children's Plan sets out how the new Department for Children, Schools and Families is going to achieve that – by putting the needs of families, children and young people at the centre of everything we do and making better linkages between all agencies that work with children.

Priority objectives and performance

We have a clear and focused set of objectives that we need to achieve over the long term to deliver our vision.

We have identified top priorities for our vision for Children and Young People - our priority objectives. 

These are the things on which we believe we can make the biggest and most sustainable impact and these are the things we will focus on improving first.

These are the priority objectives that have been set for 2008-2011 (our top ten outcomes are in bold):

  • Reducing risk-taking behaviour
  • Reducing obesity and encouraging healthy lifestyles 
  • Improving mental and emotional health
  • Increasing opportunities and participation in education, training and employment
  • Improving parenting skills and providing high quality preventative services
  • Improving the progression and transition between all key stages
  • Developing fully inclusive and cost effective educational opportunities
  • Ensuring children have a high quality pre-school experience
  • Encouraging citizenship and social cohesion
  • Increasing opportunities to participate in positive activities and recognising achievement
  • Improving outcomes for vulnerable children and young people

Key information

Over the past four years, our Children and Young People's services have been recognised by government inspectors as being amongst the most improved out of 150 authorities in the country.

The multi-agency Childhood Obesity Strategy launched with over 80% of reception and year 6 pupils captured in the National Measurement Programme.

Teenage pregnancy rates have reduced significantly. Our most recent figures place South Tyneside as the second best performing area nationally and the best performing regionally.

  • Our performance across the key stages has been impressive:
  • Key Stage 1 – Standards have been higher than similar authorities over past four years
  • Key Stage 2 – Above national average in each core subject in 2007 for the first time
  • Key Stage 3 – Above similar authorities over past three years by 6% (English), 7% (Science) and 5% (Maths)
  • GCSE – Performance has increased by 14% since 2004
  • A Level – Close to national average despite high deprivation levels in the borough
  • Since 2003 / 04 youth crime has reduced by 35%, re-offending has reduced by 11%, and first-time offending has reduced by 25%

Next update due: April 2009

 

Children and Young People

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