Aberdeen City is leading the national implementation of Happy, Safe and Achieving their Potential (Scottish Executive, 2005), in partnership with Aberdeenshire Council, The Moray Council and the Scottish Executive.

The project will last until 2008 and aims to help local authorities and schools throughout Scotland to implement the ten standards for personal support in schools that are set out in the document.

The document, Happy, Safe and Achieving their Potential , resulted from a national review of Guidance in primary and secondary schools set up as a result of Better Behaviour Better Learning (Scottish Executive, 2001). 

The review has its origins in the report of the Discipline Task Group, Better Behaviour - Better Learning (2001), which acknowledged the wide ranging issues that guidance staff in schools engage with and confirmed the importance of early intervention at nursery and primary school.  Among its 36 recommendations was a review of the nature and purpose of Guidance at primary and secondary school levels, as well as training and the integration of the different kinds of support provided in school through learning support, behaviour support and guidance.

As a result, a National Review Group on Guidance was set up and produced Happy, Safe and Achieving Their Potential (Scottish Executive 2005), which

• describes the principles for the development of Personal Support in schools

• sets out ten standards for personal support in schools

• clarifies the roles of school staff and local authorities in the provision and development of support to pupils

• recognises the role of partner agencies in supporting pupils and assisting staff in schools to provide support

• gives examples of different approaches to providing Personal Support in school.

You can download a copy of Happy, Safe and Achieving their Potential from www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/education.hsap.pdf

Local authorities were invited to submit bids for the implementation of the report of the National Review of Guidance and Aberdeen City Learning and Leisure was awarded the contract by the Scottish Executive to lead the three-year national project (2005-2008).

Following negotiations with other north-east authorities, the implementation project will be a joint venture involving Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Moray and the Scottish Executive, with Aberdeen City being the lead authority. 

The project will promote nationally

• the importance of personal support for all school students

• the ten standards described in Happy, Safe and Achieving their Potential

• the value of integrated working as a means of achieving them.

The project is being managed through a partnership of

Aberdeen City (Terry Ashton)

Aberdeenshire (George Milne)

Moray (Jim Gibson)

The Scottish Executive Education Department (Pupil Support & Inclusion Division)

A Project Advisory Group is being set up to advise the project team.  It will have representation from Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray as well as people with national remits. 

Two Development Officers have been appointed and will start work in early February 2006.  They are Gill Scott from Ellon Academy in Aberdeenshire and John MacBean from Hazlehead Academy in Aberdeen.  They will be based at Summerhill Education Centre, Stronsay Drive, Aberdeen. icer will be appointed at a date la

If you think that this project only concerns secondary schools or Guidance staff, then please think again.  It is about the whole issue of personal support for all youngsters of all ages within our school system.  It is just as much about what happens in the classroom as it is about what specialist staff do to help those with particular needs.  It concerns the ways in which schools and their partner agencies

• provide education and support for personal and social development

• help youngsters to review their progress, make transitions and plan for the future

• provide specialist support for those with particular personal needs

If you are in education it concerns you!

• setting up links with all partner agencies

• establishing a National Personal Support Network of local authority representatives

• encouraging and assisting local authority representatives in setting up local personal support networks across the country

• reviewing the information already published

• collecting and collating a variety of practice

• disseminating practice through the national and local networks

• assisting partners in putting personal support for pupils within the wider context of other policy developments in education and children’s services

• setting up and maintaining a national website

• producing a national newsletter

• producing a national Practitioners’ Toolkit For Personal Support

• involving other local authorities by commissioning pieces of work relating to the toolkit

• organising national seminars and conferences

• monitoring and evaluating the progress of the project