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Clear educational profile
Albertslund has long been recognised for the high standard of its facilities and initiatives for children, environmental education and broad spectrum of cultural and recreational options for children and young people. However, we need to document and profile our achievements while increasing awareness of our educational development initiatives.

Services for children hinge on the work of caring, committed and competent adults. Professional awareness is keen in this area, giving us a good starting point for building a framework to promote and develop the diverse personal, social and academic skills of children and young people. This will enable us to help give all children and young people a good foundation for their ongoing education, working life and participation in a democratic society.

• We will clarify the professional and educational profile of our schools, daycare centres and other services – what they stand for.
• We will promote a culture of documentation and evaluation so that we can highlight the work of our daycare centres, the benefits of schooling and schools’ results in general, as well as measures for children and young people with special needs.
• We will integrate the work of daycare centres on educational learning plans with the methods used later to teach individual pupils in preschool classes.
• We want to focus on management through dialogue and documentation and thus ensure high standards for all services for children and young people.
• We will focus on recruiting and retaining qualified, dedicated staff.

Services for children with special needs
Primary and lower secondary schools, daycare centres and recreational facilities are places where children, young people and parents meet across cultural, ethnic and social divides. Opportunities like these generate the cohesive energy that brings us together in one interactive community. Our schools, daycare centres and other children’s facilities must therefore be an attractive option for everyone – with diversity and integration as goals in their own right.

We have focused on the inclusion of children and young people with special needs. We believe the local authority’s mainstream services must provide this group with valuable experiences. Passive inclusion is not enough for special-needs youth; they must also be given the opportunity to be active participants who can play, learn and acquire social skills.

Special options must be available to children and young people who on the whole do not benefit from inclusion.

· We will create scope for differentiated communities so that all children and young people – including those with special needs – can be part of binding communities with friends and adults.

· We will develop inter-disciplinary cooperation in order to build a basis for targeted, integrated, holistically oriented initiatives at an early stage for children, young people and families with special needs.

· We will encourage skills development and inter-disciplinary cooperation between professional groups.

· We will provide integrated, targeted services for special-needs youth.

For further information please log on to the Albertslund local authority website at www.albertslund.dk.

PRINCIPLES			PLATFORM ISSUES
Urban quality			Children
Democracy			Culture
Diversity			Environment
CORNERSTONES
Housing	Commerce	Finance		Organisation	Communication

Modern buildings geared for learning
New forms of learning are constantly being developed for schools, and the focus in Danish daycare centres has shifted from being a ‘care option’ to being a ‘learning and development option’. Both of these trends challenge the design and use of our schools and daycare facilities.

Fluctuating numbers of children and the need to renovate our daycare centres have spurred a physical capacity adjustment that gives us an opportunity to rethink our physical frameworks to meet the new demands and professional challenges facing schools and daycare facilities.

· We will develop the physical environment to match demands for new forms of learning.

· We will use the need to adjust capacity to create contemporary and creative learning environments.

Children and the environment
We make daily and long-term efforts to promote sustainable development through environment education activities in our schools and daycare centres.

· We will ensure that children understand the importance of the interaction between people, nature and society.

· We will focus on developing children’s competency to respond to environmental issues.

KEY POLICY DOCUMENTS 1. Youth policy: The seven key values underlying the local authority’s initiatives for children and young people. 2. Integrated youth policy: Establishes the link between general and preventive measures, including those aimed at children and young people with special needs. 3. School policy goals: Vision and goals for the interior layout, outdoor spaces, buildings, structure and capacity of local schools. 4. Daycare centre policy goals: Goals for interior layout, outdoor spaces, buildings, structure and capacity.

INCLUSION IN DAYCARE CENTRES AND SCHOOLS
We want to promote greater inclusion in our schools and daycare institutions. This means increasing the participation of children and young people in mainstream facilities as far as possible, or ensuring that they have close ties with them. Every individual should feel that he or she is valuable to the community and that the community is valuable to them. The focus in the 2006-2009 period is on strengthening relationships between children in mainstream and special schools and centres, bolstering cooperation between professional staff in these fields and upgrading the qualifications of employees in daycare centres and schools.

DID YOU KNOW that, according to a survey carried out in 2005, 81% of parents of pupils attending primary and lower secondary schools in Albertslund are satisfied with their children’s schooling? DID YOU KNOW that of the 385 teachers who work in Albertslund’s primary and lower secondary schools, 42% are over 50, 61% are women and 16 come from non-Danish ethnic backgrounds? DID YOU KNOW that of the 3,513 children who attend the local authority’s seven* primary and lower secondary schools and the ‘10th Element’ for 10th graders, 31% are bilingual, and the average number of pupils in mainstream classes is 21.2? * soon five DID YOU KNOW that as of May 2007 Albertslund’s focus on reading skills in primary and lower secondary schools has ensured that 76% of 3rd grade children are ‘confident readers’ compared with the national figure of 71%?