In December 2006 Gateshead Council was specifically invited by the then DfES to join in this prestigious national project focusing on the support offered to children and families when a child first starts school, or moves up to secondary school. All schools were invited to express interest in the project, then, in line with the project guidelines, 50 were randomly selected for participation in this exercise, which we are running in collaboration with the Family & Parenting Institute.
Since then, a number of major training events have been held to help roll-out the project: the first two, which were conducted by the charity “4Children”, being:-
An introductory event at Dryden Professional Development Centre for all participating schools, to explore the nature of transition; and
A residential event in Manchester, attended by 10 Project Facilitators coming from schools, the local authority, and key partner organisations, such as the PCT, designed to help us produce an overall Gateshead Action Plan for how we wished to take things forward.
Subsequently, the Facilitators arranged a series of workshops last term to work with schools on their own individual School Project Proposals, which are currently being implemented.
The project contract extends over the next two terms, during which time each Facilitator will be working with a small number of schools to support their transition work. We will also be joined at various points by colleagues from the Family & Parenting Institute and from an agency called ECOTEC, which has a national remit to observe and monitor transition events on behalf of our sponsors.
The bodies we are working with are keen to stress that they see transition work with families as an ongoing process, rather than simply an initial event or two at specific points in the year, and so we look forward to a productive continuing partnership with all our schools, as we work together in developing transition support for children and their families throughout Gateshead.
Contact: Chris Sharkey, Extended Schools Link Officer, (0191) 433 6308, chrissharkey@gateshead.gov.uk