Awards and Accreditations
As a theme, Sandwell's Children and Young People's Services have a lot of things to be proud of. Please read on to find out about some of the areas of work where the theme has been recognised and rewarded.
Local Government Chronicle Awards 2008
For the fourth year running Sandwell Council is a finalist at the LGC awards. Along with the MJ awards they are the most prestigious for Local Government. It is the second year Children and Young People’s Services have been a finalist, latterly in 2006 for its fire and health and safety training. Now its award-winning project Academic Coaches Ensuring Success is a finalist in the category of Children’s Services for the specialist tailor support it gives for Looked After Children when they are completing their GCSEs. Andy Brown, Programme Manager said “It’s been an unbelievable year for the ACES Programme this takes up to 10 national awards in just twelve months.”
The results will be announced at a ceremony in London in mid-march where the elite of Local Government will be present and welcomed by Hazel Blears Minister for Communities and Local Government.
British Council for School Environments Awards 2008
In February these awards attracted two awards for the contractor for the award winning Orchard School. Already a winner in the 4Ps awards last year Orchard School is creatively designed to afford all the facilities children and young people with disabilities need to access a high quality education.
The contractor Wilmot Brown gained out right winner in the category of Best School Contractor and highly commended in Inspiring Design, Special Needs.
Ty Goddard, director of the BCSE, said:
"We're delighted to have received so many entries for the awards. The quality of entries led to some rigorous debate amongst the judges, and shows that investment in schools is producing fantastic projects which we can be proud of and all learn from.
"Our thanks go to all the architects, construction firms, suppliers, local authorities, schools and everyone else involved in these projects for being willing to invest their time and energy to ensure our children and teachers have inspiring, functional schools to learn and teach in.
"These awards are a big 'thank you' to all those helping to make our schools better."
LGC and HSJ Sustainable Communities Awards 2008
Sandwell’s Children and Young People’s Services continue to hit the right note with the SCA judges as its Triple S programme designed to be targeted specifically to get more young people active in sport scoped Highly Commended at the awards presentation in late February. The overall purpose of the new triple S/Olympic Project is to enable more people to take part in sport and physical activity. The project will specifically target young people and will comprise fitness testing for all young people in Sandwell schools; a structured programme of coached activities and after school clubs in a number of Sandwell Primary schools, a co-ordinated holiday programme specifically targeting young people; a leisure pass; ‘Walk to Beijing’; Sandwell Olympics for 12-13 year olds and support for clubs and coaches.
Becta Awards
Sandwell’s e-learning support teams received a prestigious national award at the ICC in Birmingham. Becta, the national agency for ICT in education, designated Sandwell’s e-learning services the national winner of the ICT Excellence Awards in the Support for Schools category, the only award category for local authorities. Sandwell Strategic e-learning Services work with schools and other support providers to make sure Sandwell schools have access to the latest technology and can use it effectively to support learning.
The Award requires evidence of achievement in supporting and challenging school improvement, learning resources and services, data services, infrastructure services and e-safety.
The judges were impressed by the ‘joined-up’ thinking in Sandwell and commented that the commitment from all areas was “outstanding, supportive and cohesive”. They commented on the strong work on data and schools’ collaboration and cooperation in this.
Children and Young People’s Services Awards
Following on from their success in 2006 DECCA (Drug Education, Counselling and Confidential Advice) is a finalist in three different categories in this year’s awards:
- DECCA’s innovative approach to drugs education - The Preventative Work Award
- DECCA’s resources to young people about substance misuse - The Advice and Guidance Award
- DECCA’s accredited training for young people and professionals - The Workforce Development Award
In addition the Young People’s Service is a finalist in the Workforce Development Award for recruiting and training young people from the age of 17 and adults from local communities in voluntary and paid capacities to work with young people in Sandwell. Training and support is provided for people returning to learning right through to professional youth work qualifications. This highly successful approach has had the effect of attracting more young people in particular into the service with peer educators now attaining managerial roles with SMBC.
The fifth and final finalist is ACES. ACES continues to score with national recognition, achieving their ninth in the last 12 months by gaining a finalist position in the Children and Young People’s Services Awards.
DECCA was the out right winner in the category of Advice and Guidance.
National Training Awards 2007
Not content with the achievements of last year Children and Young People’s Services this year received two National Training Awards.
The first was a regional award for the learning and development with ACES Academic Coaches, which achieves results with year 11 students and has generated new teachers many of whom, once they have completed their training return to work in Sandwell’s High Schools.
The second was a National Award for Denise Hannibal, Advisor Pupil Engagement who manages all the Learning Mentors in schools. Her award was for her personal learning journey, which saw Denise go from working in a chip shop just seven years ago to her current position. Determined Denise has completed many qualifications over the last seven years but her real drive is to make sure Sandwell’s children and young people get the best chance to learn.
APSE Awards
A one-stop service for children with special needs has been rewarded with a top public service prize.
Sandwell Integrated Support Service won the Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE) award for best Public / Public Partnership, presented last night in Gateshead.
The service was set up to provide easy access to services for families of children with special needs and disabilities.
It brings together expertise from the council's education and social services teams along with health workers
And Connexions is an innovative package, which impressed the judges.
Leading Aspect Panel Award
At the beginning of 2007 Sandwell was advised they had been successful in going through to the next round of this prestigious national award. The award is for the Advanced Teacher Status programme target at the accelerated development of teachers working in Sandwell’s schools. Following the initial stages, there was a rigorous process of providing evidence and also site visits. Both awards were successful.
The MJ Achievement Awards
Sandwell achieved highly commended in the category of Public / Private partnership and a finalist in Best Achievement in Children’s Services both for its highly successful ACES Programme, Academic Coaching Ensuring Success.
4 P's Award For Design Excellence Won By Sandwell M.B.C. - Urban Design For The Priory School And Family Centre
Jeanette Arregger, Team Architect received the 4 P's award for design excellence for the Priory School and Family Centre at the awards ceremony in Local Government House in London on the evening of 28th June 2007. The commendation for design excellence was awarded for the Worcestershire County Council PFI Learning Centre (a five school PFI project in Bromsgrove).
Commenting on the excellence of the scheme the judges said: "The integration of the family centre and the school provides a facility that really fulfils the objectives of Children's Centres in an airy well lit and comfortable space that generates well being".
Prime Minister’s Question Time Praises Sandwell’s ACES Project
Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair has heaped praise on a unique link-up between West Bromwich Albion and high schools in Sandwell.
Mr Blair thanked everyone involved in the ACES programme - the country's only academic coaching programme involving a football club.
ACES harnesses the motivational power of the football club to boost exam success.
It is a unique partnership between the Albion, Sandwell Council, high schools and a range of community organisations.
Sustainable Communities Awards 2007
Our highly successful programme ACES (Academic Coaches Ensuring Success) was a finalist in the SCA 2007, jointly sponsored by the Health Service Journal and Local Government Chronicle Awards, in the category of Partnerships: Sustainable Communities. These high profile awards focus on joint projects involving public, private and voluntary sectors with the addition of a health-focussed outcome. ACES was one of four projects short listed in four different categories from Sandwell, there being 11 categories in total. ACES is an unbelievably successful programme targeted at Year 11 students who are predicted not to achieve 5 A* - C GCSEs and in the last three years its successes have produced a bucking of national trends in overall percentage achievement for boys and girls.
IDeA Knowledge
In January 2007 the IDeA (Local Government Improvement and Development agency) featured Children and Young People’s Services on their good practice website. They ran a feature article on Sandwell’s targeted member development programme to accelerate learning key members and the development of a package for Cabinet Members new in role entitled “How to Become an Expert in Your Cabinet Portfolio”. In tackling this issue Sandwell MBC became the first in the country to achieve this.
DECCA
Sandwell’s Drug Education, Counselling and Confidential Advice Team successfully scoped an award for their services in the Children and Young People’s Services Award 2006. The DECCA team provides information on drugs and alcohol to children through schools and community links as well as counselling and one-to-one support to young people misusing substances.
National Training Award 2006
In October 2006 Children and Young People’s services netted a National training Award for the West Midlands, beating off stiff competition from the public, private and voluntary sectors. This was for the training initiative on fire and health and safety completed in the theme and with every school and residential centre. Entitled “A Spark that Initiated Change”, at the award event Children and Young People’s Services was also awarded the only sponsored award of the night from City and Guilds.