It’s time for this week’s Friday insights round-up from Big Change Impact Manager, Caitlin.
Check out the new reports she’s been reading up on and what the team have been pondering in the first week of December.
Early years evidence
The excellent work by our project partner EasyPeasy has been recognised at EDUCATE’s EdWards! They were winners in the ‘Evidence Applied’ category and we couldn’t be prouder.
Speaking of evidence-applied solutions in early years, The Education Endowment Foundation amplified the importance of early years development this week with the release of its evidence-based recommendations for parents to support their child’s learning.
It’s great to see organisations like EEF contributing to the case for early years development – we hope to see more of this in the near future!
Barriers to thriving in life
The Guardian‘s report on racial bias in the UK reveals heartbreaking statistics on the impact of racial bias on black, asian and minority ethnic individuals. It quotes Tottenham MP David Lammy saying:
Racial prejudice continues to weigh on the lives of black and ethnic minority people in the UK. While we all share the same hard-won rights, our lived experience and opportunity can vary.
Big Change’s mission is to help all young people thrive in life – while this report paints a bleak picture of the state of racial bias (both conscious and unconscious) in the UK today, we hope it will also provide an important moment for understanding, and working to overcome, a critical hurdle on the path to equity.
The RSA also just released a thought provoking piece on what they have identified as Britain’s New Giants: inequality looms large alongside disempowerment, isolation, intolerance and climate change.
Read more about the RSA’s vision for society where citizens, businesses and governments work together, in policy and in practice, to tackle inequalities of income and wealth, of health and wellbeing and of place, power and exclusion. The report highlights how interconnected the barriers to thriving in life really are.
Ofsted Annual Report
Another report is out – the annual report from Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman. This highlighted the systemic deprivation faced by young people with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) – including a high rate of off-rolling and fixed term exclusion.
This is more evidence of the importance of support pioneering project partners like The Difference who are working to shape an education system that can support all young people, including the most vulnerable.