Step Up Step Up - December 2013

D E CE M B E R - J A NU AR Y 2 0 1 3 / 1 4 Step Up Inside this issue 1 Editorial comment ENJOY AND ACHIEVE 2 A school place for every child 3 Children in care benefit from pupil premium plus 4 Virtual school set to expand 5 Investing in SEN schools 6 Towards traded school services 7 Calat leads on family learning 8 Single team for early intervention and youth services 9 Book parcels aid literacy and numeracy 10 School applications mapping tool 11 Clocktower relaunches 12 Calat photography awards Message from Tim Pollard I’d like to open by congratulating the staff and pupils at John Ruskin College. In just three years they have gone from ‘inadequate’ to ‘outstanding’. This is no mean feat for any school, but is particularly impressive in the current climate of tougher Ofsted inspections. Another success over the past few months was the achievements of many of our Calat photography students, who swept the board at the international City and Guilds photographic competition for the second year running. And Rockmount School has shown itself to be a leader in safe school travel, receiving a significant accolade from Transport for London. You can read more about this inside this edition of Step Up. One of my personal highlights of the past few months was a morning spent at Woodcote High School and Chipstead Valley Primary School. Along with The Mayor I had the privilege of helping to formally open two new special educational needs resource bases. These bases provide exceptionally high-quality facilities for pupils with physical and learning difficulties and it’s rewarding to see how the council’s investment in schools makes such a difference to the lives of our children. POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION 13 Croydon’s youth offer ECONOMIC WELL-BEING 14 Tackling parental skills-gap STAYING SAFE 15 Bullying has to stop 16 Tackling risk-taking behaviour BE HEALTHY 17 Rockmount leads the way in safe travel 18 New SEN guide Opening of Woodcote High SEN base