Better, brighter futures

We want North Northamptonshire to be a place where our children and young people are cared for. We want them to be provided with a high-quality education, training and other learning opportunities so that they can flourish and reach their full potential.

We will focus on building early resilience by supporting families, children and young people to be ready for school. We will help them to grow up in safe and secure homes in communities that value them and see their potential.

Working closely with our partners, such as the Children’s Trust, and other education providers, we will ensure that children have the best opportunities to learn and fulfil their ambitions. 

We will support disadvantaged and vulnerable children to help them grow their skills, confidence and abilities.

We realise that children, young people and their families may need help at different stages in their lives.  We will aim to provide help as early as possible and provide the right support, at the right time in the right way to ensure that children are safeguarded and get the best start in life.

Our priorities

  • Ensure every child has equal access to a high standard of education
  • Support partners and the Children’s Trust to provide better early support to families and better standards of care
  • Promote better training, further education and employment opportunities for young people
How will we monitor progress
  • Performance indicators and outcomes for:
  1. Children’s Services
  2. The Children’s Trust
  3. Public Health
  4. Training and further education provision
  • Progress in the delivery of our Service Plans
  • Budget Performance of services

 

We will:

  • Support schools to provide good and outstanding educational provision.
  • Ensure there are enough school placements in the right places.
  • Increase the percentage of children offered their first choice of school.
  • Support schools to provide physical activity programmes through our Healthier Schools Programme.
  • Support children in low-income families and reduce the impact of deprivation and inequalities that adversely affect school readiness or performance. For example, the Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF).
  • Increase the uptake of vaccinations in school age children to reduce the impact of ill-health on school absence.

We will:

  • Work with the Trust and partners to develop early help services to provide early support to families.
  • Work with partners in the Safeguarding Partnership to promote and develop safeguarding activities for children and families.
  • To work with the Trust to develop quality services for children and their families.
  • Monitor commissioning through our partnership with Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to deliver Tier 1 and 2 level interventions. These  include: supporting healthier pregnancies and reducing infant mortality rates, providing support to reduce smoking during pregnancy and ensure breastfeeding initiation is encouraged where possible by maternity nurses, midwives, health visitors and primary care.
  • Ensure physical health strategies address the needs of children classified as obese.
  • Work with Children First and Mental Health teams to identify ways to prevent traumatic childhood experiences such as abuse, neglect and homelessness which often adversely impacts into adulthood.

We will:

  • Develop an opportunities pathway into apprenticeships.
  • Identify training and employment opportunities across the Council.
  • Review the 16-19 training and employment offer to ensure it meets local skills needs.

Last updated 17 December 2021