Ed Balls, minister for children, schools and families

I didn't get all that close to the new minister for children, schools and families - Ed Balls - last week.

But I was pleased to get an invitation to hear him speak to members of the National Children's Bureau .

On a semi-tropical afternoon in North London, Ed Balls made a flustered-sounding key note address. He appeared to lose his place, stumble for words and generally sound ill-prepared.

Personally, I thought it was marvellous.

He spoke with compassion, and like someone who had been thinking about difficult things for a long time. The result of engaging with difficult stuff was not the usual "well-what-can-we-do" tone but an almost jaunty defence of what's good about childhood today in Britain. As well as an honest take on the barbarities in the systems that are supposed to help families and protect children.

After he spoke, there was the usual chimera of "questions". These are either (a) very poor mini-speeches from the floor which may or may not end with something to answer or (b) attempts at money-making.

Someone has something to say about outdoor play? Turns out he sells playground equipment. Someone else is worried about disabled children. His salary is paid by a lobby group for disabled children.

Etc.

In general, nothing wrong with what any of them said individually. But each one only spoke on a narrow subject. Narrowly. Usually angling for money.

When money announcements were made, clapping broke out. I imagine that people clapped like that in the court of Louis XIV - the sycophantic, fluttering claps of the desperate. No hearty clapping or cheering here - and no honest rough and tumble in debate.

Despite all that, I'd say that (based admittedly on slim evidence) I am optimistic that Ed Balls will be the best minister in charge of schools we've had for many years.

Hope he can take on all those special interests (or at least ignore them) and keep thinking boldly and clearly about children.

One other thing: the line-up was all-male. Ed Balls, his permanent secretary, the 2 people from the NCB. What's that about? Coincidence? It used to be mainly (or all) woman - like the audience. As policy for children and families gets more important, will men increasingly take it over?

(But leave women to do most of the actual work).

No justice

I've been thinking a lot about domestic violence - because there seems to be a lot of it about. I'm thinking of some especially nasty incidents here, all recent - a throttling, a stab to the chest, and broken face bones.

So, imagine you are one of these women, and you have a young child.

You have been seriously assaulted and now you are being threatened.

How does the system work to protect you?

About as well as a sieve'll keep the rain off you, if you put it over your head.

Try this.

You apply for an injunction, but your ex-partner, the aggressor, has no fixed address now so the injunction cannot be served. That means he can, quite legally, come up to your front door or hang around your block of flats.

Your child is anxious, angry, disturbed, going up the wall. Social services however won't do anything to help.

So (and this is true, honestly) someone loses it and smacks their four year old. Once. A referral is made to social services, a social worker is allocated, and help is offered. Along with some advice about appropriate ways to discipline a child.

But your child has seen your face punched, bones broken, police and ambulance called, not just once. Your child is going crazy. But social services won't help - say they can't help. Unless you start to harm your child. Then they can get involved.

You want to move to a different address.

Perhaps you waited on the queue for years and now you have a council flat.

You can be moved, urgently, because of violence or harassment. But you will be moved from your flat into one-room accommodation, with shared washing and toilet facilities.

The law says you can only be left in this emergency accommodation for 6 weeks.

That means that 6 weeks later you will probably be in a slightly bigger room with a Baby Belling stove and your own toilet.

There is no limit on how long you will be in that accommodation. Could be years.

Could you manage all that time, in one room, with a disturbed and angry child?

I couldn't.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that's how it goes for women who are beaten up by their husbands, boyfriends, partners.

The system beats them up, too. Or lets them down.

They lose everything.

The sadness

This is a post I've been thinking of since last night. How to put it? I don't mean this in a sentimental way. It's nothing like Little Dorrit. But I just sat quietly on the sofa at home last night and felt so very sad for some of the children I work with. Children caught in the middle of rows and disputes. Children who have witnessed violence, the sort of violence that's like when someone is kicked when they are down on the floor, that makes you think someone isn't going to get up again, someone is going to die. I spent the day cajoling and arguing with other people who I thought could help. They couldn't. Or wouldn't.

So I felt angry, cross, annoyed, blood up at work, and the enjoyment that (when I'm honest) I get when I am fighting for something as well as the frustration and sense of powerlessness.

Then I got home, sat down, and felt so sad about it all. Wondered how long I can keep working with this level of emotion.

Does assessment matter?

When you get a few people together who care about the education of young children, the discussion soon turns to complaining about the tiresome chores that go along with the job. It isn’t difficult to see why. Quickly scan the new Early Years Foundation Stage and you will see that there are hundreds of things which we are expected to “look, listen and note” about the babies, toddlers and young children we care for and teach – I make it more than 350 assessment points in total.

So the new EYFS is far too long, detailed and complex – in this respect, it’s worse than the old Foundation Stage it replaces. Fortunately, government curriculum guidance comes and goes fairly regularly, and this is not where any discussion of the rights and wrongs of assessment should begin.

I am going instead to start with something fairly obvious, and often stated: early education begins with the child. Logically, there is no alternative. Education cannot begin anywhere else. Teachers may begin with all sorts of ideas, themes, topics or interest tables. Children always start learning from their own position.

So we must begin by getting to know each child. Research shows that the strongest predictors of how well children will do later in school, are not certain skills or aspects of knowledge, but qualities which are individual. What matters are strong interests, dispositions to learn, and the capacity to persevere when things are difficult.

By getting to know each child, a skilled early years educator is able to manage the resources, the curriculum content, and the conversation, in order to develop just those qualities.

This planning cannot come out of thin air. Nor can it come by repeating what worked last year. But it can come from careful observation. I was first taught this type of observation by a nursery nurse I worked with in Sheffield, who showed me a “narrative observation”. This was a detailed account of everything a child had done for a short period of time, when that child was deeply involved and interested. To be useful, narrative observation needs to be followed by thinking “what next?” Any of Tina Bruce's books will give you a thorough explanation of this way of working.

Without good assessment, we cannot know what we should plan next. We also cannot know much about the effectiveness of the curriculum. When we have fifty observations of children’s spoken language but only three of their understanding of science, we know where the planning is lacking.

Finally, good assessment practices provide a medium for parents and professionals to consider the child’s development and learning. What might have been seen as just another half hour in the home corner can be illuminated as the child’s developing language and exploration of mathematical ideas through finding the right clothes and bed for the smallest of the dolls.

If we are concerned with the quality of each child’s development, learning and knowledge, we need observation, and we need assessment. Nothing else can illuminate the child, and the quality (or otherwise) of the learning environment that is on offer. Without good assessment, early education turns into a waste of everyone’s time.

What are they (we) like?

Here's a few things I have been storing up about headteachers.

A friend is working in a school on the edge of London. It's quite a hard school to work in - I think the neighbourhood is pretty poor and some of the children's behaviour is difficult. But the headteacher is well-organised, the school runs pretty smoothly, and things are generally managed well.

Right at the end of term the headteacher calls the staff together. She announces that she has decided to resign.

Some shock and disappointment.

Why is she going?

Well, she tells them, she would like to be an Ofsted inspector next.

The school has an Ofsted coming up soon.

"Because of the children here," she continues, "we can't ever get better than "good" in Ofsted. Their achievement won't ever be good enough to get an "outstanding". And to be an Ofsted inspector, I need to get an "outstanding".

So I'm leaving before Ofsted come to inspect."

What a great send-off.

I'm moving on because none of you will ever be good enough to allow me to advance my career.

A couple more things that cheer me up because they are so ridiculous.

In any given meeting, headteachers will: interrupt, whisper, make jokes, get up when they feel like it.

Over coffee the same people will complain about how they and their staff are ground down by the constant disruption of children, rudeness of parents, etc.

Last time I spent a day with headteachers looking at the subject of family support, a particularly crazy one practically held the floor, interrupting every few minutes and telling the trainer how he didn't know anything about "the kinds of families we work with", how unreliable they are, they never come to appointments, they can't be helped.

After she'd gone slightly beyond the point where I wanted to say something, but not quite to the point where my inhibitions about confrontation in a meeting are overcome, it was the coffee break.

When we came back there was an empty chair at the table.

She'd gone.

Last one.

Since I became a head I spend probably far too much time emailing, in meetings etc. I used to spend more of the day trying to keep up with the children. Now I feel a bit like a distinguished visitor when I am out in the garden or playing in the main room.

It hasn't been that great for my physique either. Yesterday a four year old, glint in eye, ran up to (into) me and put his hand on my stomach.

Asked - "What's in there?"