ARC Chair Update - January 2025

I trust that it has been a positive start to 2025, and would like to wish all, a belated Happy New Year.

The work initiated by our Call To Action continues to develop collaboratively across a growing number of organisations. In addition to developing a national TIAAS roundtable group that meets termly, ARC are currently helping in a number of documents and campaigns to raise awareness and creating a more connected system to support our children and young people. These will be shared in more detail in the February newsletter.

The Children’s Well Being and Schools Bill that reflects a number of areas featured in the work of ARC. The focus on Initial Teacher Training (ITT) provides a new spotlight on the ITT document shared by the ARC HE & Research group – found here. The intent on raising the profile of creative skills is not only essential to develop employability and social skills but is very much integral to ensuring each individual young person has a cultural entitlement, providing a positive sense of belonging and nurturing good emotional and mental health. Furthermore, the focus on children that are currently home educated provides the potential for looking more closely at their needs, and hopefully allowing the education system to readjust and successfully support them in their learning pathway.

I am pleased to share with the ARC community reflections from Margaret Mulholland (ASCL Send & Inclusion Policy Specialist) around attendance codes. This paper offers a commentary on the impact of not allowing quality remote education to be coded as ‘attendance’, where this is the most effective form of education for that young person. Additionally, a rationale for creating attendance codes for remote learning that recognise student attendance at live, teacher led remote education as attendance (not absence). It can be found here.

ARC are very much looking forward to receiving nominations for the newly introduced regional ARC Timpson Awards. These have been expanded to help support the strategic work around relational approaches across schools, MAT’s and Virtual Schools. All these awards will be presented regionally this academic year, with winners automatically being shortlisted for the national awards. The tradition of presenting the national awards will be maintained for the ARC Annual Conference being held in Birmingham on the 11th November 2025.

I would like to offer our congratulations to Calvin Kipling, Darlington Virtual School Head Teacher, who was named in the King’s New Year Honours List with an MBE for his services to education. I am sure all will join me in celebrating this richly deserved recognition – well done, Calvin!

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