Bryan Slater Director of Education	Distribution
	To all Headteachers

The attached document is provided for your information:

INFORMATION	Title	Single Education Plan
	Summary of contents	Letter explaining introduction of Single Education Plan
	Associated documents	-
	Date	8 June 2004
	Effective from
	LEA Contact	Alison Cunningham	(	01603 223480
	E-mail address	Alison.cunningham@norfolk.gov.uk
	Norfolk Self Review reference	7. How well is the school led and managed?
	Document reference	MI 122-04

Single Education Plan

As part of its aim to lighten the burden on LEAs and to encourage LEA's planning arrangements to better reflect local circumstances, the DfES is introducing the Single Education Plan (SEP). This will replace all the current statutory plans, such as the Educational Development Plan, the Behaviour Support Plan and the Asset Management Plan.

Norfolk has been selected to be in Phase One of this project. Our first Single Education Plan will cover the period April 2005 - April 2009 and must be submitted to the DfES at the beginning of next year.

The SEP should be a concise strategic document and must cover all the key areas of the LEA's responsibility. It needs to be underpinned by a set of coherent Operational Plans which will set out in detail how the strategic goals identified in the SEP will be accomplished.

We are working closely with the Every Child Matters Project Team to ensure flexibility within the planning structure to enable the joint working methods which will arise from the new Children's Services, to be integrated.

Our first step has been to identify the following 5 strategic goals which have been formulated with the help of the department and other stakeholders through the Partnership Forum and the LEA Improvement Group.

1. An appropriate and challenging curriculum which encourages high standards through improved learning opportunities.

2. Rich suitable environments which stimulate effective learning.

3. A culture which protects, nurtures, inspires and empowers individuals particularly the most vulnerable.

4. Adequate resources to maintain an effective, motivated and well-trained workforce.

5. A learning service which has the capacity to respond to change.

The draft SEP will be shared with groups within the Improvement Partnership during the Autumn Term.

For the last 2 years we have sent out to all schools a summary of our service plan, Achieving Excellence. The development of our Single Education Plan has meant that work on Achieving Excellence has been scaled down during this transition year, and there will be no hard copy of the Service Plan.

We will be sending out a summary of the new Single Education Plan to all schools early next year.

This is for information only but if you would like to offer any comment please contact Alison Cunningham as shown above.

Yours sincerely

Bryan Slater

Director of Education