Good news! At Voice it! Education we are looking at working with an National awarding body to get the Journey Programme accredited – meaning even more reasons to choose the Journey as a preferred enrichment for learners’ personal and social development!

Watch this space and we will keep you updated along the way to let you know the progress!

It has been announced today by the Department of Education that the proportion of 18-24-year-olds in England who are not in school, college or work has fallen. In total, 16.3% were classed as Neet – not in education, employment or training – in the second quarter of this year. This is down from 17.6% in the same quarter of last year. The DfE report that a total of 776,000 18-24-year-olds were classed as Neet in the first quarter of 2010, down from 831,000 last year.

Yes good news – we can see a reduction. However these statistics don’t lie… 16.3% equates to one in every six 18-24 years olds have basically no life direction, absolutely no healthy aspiration or hope for the future. That is a damning indictment on our education system which is meant to prepare our young people for a successful engagement in life. Our education system has an outdated design brief; whether it be the shape of schools, the content of the curriculum , the design of assessment or the way in which teachers teach, we are yet to awake from a deep malaise.

The ‘one in six’ is just one part of the problem – yes this group is seen as a tribe apart; a social problem that needs to be fixed, but in truth the problem does not lie with them it lies with the systemic disease running through education – they have been failed a long time ago. I have just got back from Scotland teaching a team of employability coaches our approach and programme for engaging the NEET group; so often we are called in to help undo the damage that has already been done. Like one of the employability coaches said at the training, ‘Why isn’t this all taught in schools at an earlier age?’  So true. Whilst we do have some visionaries in education who are taking the lead and looking for ways  to dimish these ‘statistics’ before they happen, the truth is our normal ‘band aid’ approach means most funding is allocated to the ‘fix’ rather than building a programme that takes pre-emptive action to avoid these issues in the first place.

So yes, I hope these statistics continue to fall through the great work of many NEET programmes out there, however lets also hope that we begin to  focus on the route causes and look at ways of implementing a more socially and emotionally supportive education so that we don’t continue to fail our future generations.

You can read the full article here.

It was reported this week in the telegraph that over 1000 girls aged 11 and 12 have been given prescriptions for the pill. Trevor Stammers GP suggested that through this, Britain is ‘facilitating the sexualisation of younger people at an even younger age’

I would argue that the real trouble is that the sexualisation has already happened… if a young girl is at that point of needing the pill then the sexualisation process has already occurred through the influence of media and/or parents.

What is it every young person craves? Acceptance, approval and attention. There is no exception to this and the greatest society archetype of ‘Woman’ as portrayed in the media clearly facilitates this sexualisation in young girls. Unless there is a parental influence that balances this popular archetype then the young girl is bound by the message… and the message is clear; look like this, act like this, be like this and you will be seen as attractive, you will get the attention you need and you will be beautiful and be loved.

The void that is created by dysfunctional parents is ably filled by the media’s compulsive need to put woman in their box. One only has to turn on Jeremy Kyle in the mornings to see the kind of parents that many of our youth are growing up with. Now don’t pretend you haven’t watched it. I think everyone has been late for work at least once waiting for those DNA results!

Trevor Stammers told The Sunday Times: “If sex education is introduced in primary schools in the way being proposed, we will see many more 11-year-old girls seeking contraception without pointing out the risks…. We are going to make matters worse.”

Now by introducing sex education at even earlier ages it may feel like we are shortening the naivety of childhood. As far as I am aware the sex education that we are talking about being implemented is more a talking about relationships and friendships; the part that has been sadly lacking in what has traditionally been biologically focused sex education.

Traditionally the responsibility for this kind of education would have fallen to the parents…alas as we have seen on Mr Kyle’s show and as any teacher will testify there are plenty of parents out there who just do not have the skills or care to do this. So with the universal need in children for attention and affection,  the void of character education left by poor parenting coupled with the Media’s keen ability to fill it, we are left with a scenario where we have no choice but to bring sex and relationship education into the frame at an earlier age. This isn’t a case of prescribing the pill too young, rather it is an invitation for us to start a dialogue about how can we as a society ensure the parents of the future are equipped to deal with the key  responsibilities of parenthood!? You can read the telegraph article here

Yes, today it has been reported that almost two thirds of social workers  do not have enough time to serve children and young people properly, according to an Ofsted survey.

Well there’s a surprise… the good old game of bureaucracy rears it’s head again… you know that one where everyone stands around and the first one to do anything loses!

What we need to understand if we want to see change in social care or education is that change is always going to be resisted because bureaucrats are always going to have a vested interest in the procedures in which they exist. To the bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcome is nothing.

The opposite is true for our social workers, our teachers and those with the aspiration to serve and bring out the fullest potential of our children and young people. What we need is to ensure our procedures are there to serve the outcome and nothing more. When a procedure has outstayed it’s welcome it’s time to let it go! Our social workers and teachers are doing a tough enough job as it is without a lopsided bureaucracy in their path. As Albert Einstein said, ‘Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work’.  How true.

To read the full article about the ofsted survey of over 4000 social workers click here…

A report published by Ofsted this week has said that provision for personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) is improving for more than three quarters of the England Schools visited. Good news! Have a read of the article here.

However,  around one in four offered variable quality of teaching, and expertise and resources in this area were considered not good enough. Not so great.

Schools that are delivering The Journey Programme which includes Respect it! for Equality & Diversity, Express it! for Emotional Wellbeing and Go4it for Raising aspirations and Employability, will be pleased to know that we are well underway with the development of our Economic Education programme for young people ‘Money Matters’ …We shall keep you all posted!

Unemployment rates today are twice as high among young people than adults… for those young people who have become disengaged from education, their prospects are not good.

Practitioners often ask me ‘What are some of the most successful approaches to engaging the disengaged?’ (NEET Group).

I have recently posted the following article ‘Improving Employability Among Disengaged Young People’ which highlights a few of the approaches that work for us at Voice it! Education in getting the best from all young people including the most hard to reach!

Cheers, Glenn

Welcome to our new site! After months of hard work  from the Voice it! team and all at Covert Digital, voiceit.com is finally ready, with a new improved look, packed full of information for you. I am really excited that through this site more and more people are going to get to hear about the The Journey programme for young people. Also the 3 young people programmes, Respect it!, Express it! and Go4it! have been enhanced and developed further to build on the amazing results that have been achieved so far! Also for those working in KS2 Primary you will be excited to hear about the IMPACT! programme which is now not only available directly to schools but also to individuals too! Finally, as Voice it! grows and we expand our horizons and reach out to many more young people and those professional who work with them, we are at a pivitol stage in looking to work with passionate and talented individuals to join our LIcensed Coaching team. If you like the look of what we do and that you would like to explore getting involved then take a look at the new  Coach it! page. Finally, my heart felt  thanks to all at Voice it! in particular Louisa and Lauren and… Beth… what a great job you have done. And of course, as I said a big thank you to Mark at Covert Digital for all his expertise and positivity in getting this site up together… we think it looks fantastic, hope you enjoy it too! Glenn Perry, Director Voice it! Education.