Improving outcomes for all children and young people

A leading Early Years expert at the University of Leeds has been appointed Deputy Chair of a new scientific advisory body guiding government policy on issues concerning children and young people.

Professor Mark Mon-Williams, Chair in Cognitive Psychology in Leeds' School of Psychology, will support Professor Dame Athene Donald in leading the Department for Education's Science Advisory Council (DfE SAC).

He is one of 12 independent experts sitting on the newly established council, which will provide independent scientific advice to the DfE on matters relevant to its policy and operations and supporting the government's Opportunity Mission to improve outcomes for all children and young people.

The council's work on supporting the Opportunity Mission will commence when Early Years experts across the UK will meet with the Department for Education in Sheffield on 5 November, to begin to identify key policy priorities for the pre-school years.

The creation of the Scientific Advisory Council is transformative because it is the first time that evidence and research generated in the north of England is being pulled upon to benefit everybody throughout the UK.

Professor Mon-Williams said: "The Department for Education's Opportunity Mission cuts across all the different government departments, including Health and Social Care, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The mission is entirely focused on what can be done to improve outcomes for every child and young person across the UK.

"My role is to marshal the tremendous body of scientific evidence around improving health and education that is being generated by research communities around the UK, and ensure it finds its way into the council and is fed to Ministers and Secretaries of State so their policies can be based on the best possible evidence.

"I am honoured and privileged to be asked to take up this position."

The Council was established by Professor Russell Viner, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Education. Professor Viner was the previous President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and Professor Mon-Williams was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College earlier this year as a result of his work on improving child health.

The council's remit includes areas such as early identification and support of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), mental health support, online harms prevention, a sustainable and secure school estate, and artificial intelligence and education technology.

Members will also work with Professor Viner to identify and share emerging scientific trends with officials and facilitate effective links between the department and the wider scientific community.

Professor Viner said: "We are the department for opportunity, working to deliver better life chances for all - and that means being at the forefront of cutting-edge scientific evidence to ensure we are doing everything we can to break the link between background and success.

"We must keep pace with technological and scientific advancements if we are to deliver the highest standards for the people we serve. Science alone cannot address the challenges the department faces - but it can inform robust, evidence-informed decision making."

Universities working together

As editor of the year-long Child of the North series of reports, Founder Director of the Centre of Applied Education Research, and Multidisciplinary Research Group lead for the Children's Health Outcomes Research at Leeds (CHORAL) network, Professor Mon-Williams is passionate about improving outcomes for children and young people across the north of England and beyond.

He said: "Universities across the north of England are working together to create evidence for policymakers that can improve outcomes for every child and young person.

"Previously this work was not feeding into decisions being made in Westminster and Whitehall. There has been a sea change, where this government recognises that the answers to the problems besetting the UK are to be found within the communities that are experiencing them, and that the government needs to listen, look at the evidence, and use it to drive policymaking.

"The creation of the Scientific Advisory Council is transformative because it is the first time that evidence and research generated in the north of England is being pulled upon to benefit everybody throughout the UK. It is very exciting."

Professor Mon-Williams said a cultural shift was needed among researchers who are working to provide evidence to influence policy.

He said: "As academics we tend to wait until we are almost 100% certain about our findings before we present them as evidence. However, this may not be helpful to policymakers who need the best available evidence to make decisions now, rather than waiting 10 years for the definitive evidence, by which time you will have missed the opportunity to improve lives.

"It is more helpful to say that we are not 100% certain, but the weight of the best available evidence suggests a particular course of action to achieve the desired outcome. The evidence might be quite strong - and that is a lot better than no evidence at all and allows a test-and-learn approach."

And he said that this approach has been adopted by academics working on the Child of the North project, co-led by the N8 group of the eight most research-intensive Universities in the north of England; the Northern Health Science Alliance, and former Children's Commissioner Anne Longfield's Centre for Young Lives.

Child of the North is a platform for collaboration, high-quality research, and policy engagement to improve the lives of children living in the north and all children suffering from inequalities.

Professor Mon-Williams said: "Our academic groups have self-organised along with people with lived experience into communities of research and practice, and have gathered evidence from educational and health settings, together with datasets from scientific research, to give advice to the new government on how it can improve outcomes for children and young people.

"We have created 12 communities of practice around key issues such as the autism crisis, the school attendance crisis, and child poverty, and this year we are producing 12 monthly reports which include action plans using the best current evidence on how to tackle each issue.

"We now have these activated networks that allow us to start connecting our research communities with policymakers. Under previous governments of all colours, this did not happen, so this is a transformative step which will enable us to act together to ensure every child can thrive. This is not possible without collaboration - and Child of the North is a fantastic testament to how different communities can come together and act in the best interests of every child and young person."

Ecosystems of support

Collaboration is at the heart of two University of Leeds-led Early Years networks which have been created to address key health and educational issues faced by children and young people in Leeds, the north, and the wider UK.

CHORAL (Child Health Outcomes Research at Leeds) is a partnership between the University of Leeds; Leeds Children's Hospital (part of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust), Leeds Hospitals Charity, and partners across the health, social and public sectors, with a shared mission to tackle serious health and wellbeing problems affecting children and young people.

CHORAL works hand in glove with CAER (Born in Bradford's Centre for Applied Education Research) in Bradford. CAER is CHORAL's sister organisation based on a formal partnership between the Universities of Leeds and Bradford and the Bradford Teaching Hospital Trust. CHORAL and CAER work together to use scientific findings to improve health and education outcomes for children and young people across West Yorkshire.

Professor Mon-Williams said: "Both are fantastic examples of how we are creating an ecosystem that can support children and young people in the localities in which universities are based. We bring local research communities together, but we are not just sitting in our geographical or disciplinary silos - we reach out to colleagues across disciplines in Liverpool, Newcastle, Durham and further afield through our Child of The North consortium.

"The strength of CHORAL is in our mission to connect and coordinate all the brilliant work and activity happening around the country which we can benefit from and bring into Leeds, while pushing back out all the fantastic work happening across West Yorkshire. Through CHORAL, we are connecting all the Early Years research across our campus with all the clinicians working on child health in Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

"CHORAL means we have a connected, coordinated community within Leeds, which can then connect with other communities, such as the one in Bradford. This means we no longer have individuals pushing in different directions - we are all aligning and pushing in the same direction, which is fantastically exciting.

"My new government role means that I can take this knowledge being generated across the North of England and feed it into policymaking, so that every policy is based on the best evidence from right across the UK - and that is completely transformative."

The panel members are:

• Chair: Professor Dame Athene Donald, DBE, FRS, Professor Emerita of Experimental Physics and former Master of Churchill College, University of Cambridge
• Deputy Chair: Professor Mark Mon-Williams, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of Leeds
• Professor Chris Bonell, Professor of Public Health & Sociology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• Professor William J. Browne, Professor of Statistics & Head of the School of Education, University of Bristol
• Dr Claire Crawford, Associate Professor at the Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, University College London
• Michael Cribb, Chartered Structural Engineer and Associate Director, Arup
• Dr Dougal Hargreaves, Houston Reader in Paediatrics and Population Health, Imperial College London
• Dr Sonya Krutikova, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Manchester, and Deputy Research Director, Institute for Fiscal Studies
• Professor Rose Luckin, Professor Emeritus of Learner Centred Design, University College London
• Dr Amy Orben, Leader of the Digital Mental Health Group at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge
• Professor Paul Ramchandani, LEGO Professor of Play in Education, Learning and Development, University of Cambridge
• Professor Michael J. Reiss, Professor of Science Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, and University College London

Further information

Contact University of Leeds press officer Lauren Ballinger with media enquiries via email on [email protected] or by phone on 0113 3438059.

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