y local authority have recently introduced their own Health and Wellbeing Strategy (2017) and a policy entitled ‘Boosting Brains, Boosting Learning: A Briefing to Support Educator Understanding of the Readiness for Learning Approach’ (2018) in a bid to support the structure and delivery of the curriculum so that children can be the best learners they can be and achieve the best possible outcomes, regardless of background. Both documents take account of global and national policy and have been written in direct response to the work carried out by the Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC) and the National Improvement Framework (NIF) with schools held accountable to strategic aims of the documents. They take relevant data from the 2016 Scottish Multiple Index of Deprivation (SIMD) into account which indicates that 26% of families in my local authority live in poverty and locality data stating that Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) are more prevalent in my local authority than in other parts of the Scotland and the UK. The long term aims of the policies are clear with both seeking to achieve both excellence and equity for all children and young people, but neither have been disseminated to council employees effectively and few know of their existence. Although staff are familiar with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), few are aware of how the data is directly linked to local families thus impacting directly on the experiences our children and young people have.

As stated earlier, it is the aim of Scottish education to give every child equal opportunity to succeed. It can also be said that having a good start in life is essential to success in later life. Having examined and critically engaged in global, national and local policy, whilst also conveying an understanding of the implications or strategic leadership, I will now seek to outline my proposed Strategic Change Issue and justify this. Having carried out a whole school audit based on Education Scotland’s Applying Nurture as a Whole School Approach (2016) during session 17/18 it became clear that staff’s understanding of how best to support children and young people with social, emotional and behavioural needs was inconsistent across the whole school. Data showed that staff did not understand the ‘six key principles of nurture’ as detailed in Education Scotland’s Applying Nurture as a Whole School Approach (2016) and there was a lack of understanding that all staff have a part to play in establishing and sustaining positive relationships with children to then support them to achieve their full potential. The audit highlighted the need to develop the staff’s knowledge of different strategies and approaches which can be used to best support children with social, emotional and behavioural needs. My identified Strategic Change Issue therefore is to address: Inconsistencies of staff knowledge and understanding on how to best support children with social, emotional and behavioural needs in order to achieve best outcomes for learners. It is important that as educators we recognise the importance of positive interactions with children and young people