Christmas may have come early for many of us working in Post-16 education with the publication of the Department of Education’s new minimum standards for the 16-19 age range.

The standards might come during a time of rapid change and upheaval for the sector, but they will provide a welcome steer for education professionals, young people and their parents/guardians as they look towards the future.

The Government’s minimum standards for the 2011/12 academic year -  http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/youngpeople/participation/b00218198/16-19-accountability/interim-minimum-standards-2011-12 - will cover all schools and colleges for 16 to 18 year olds and provide a clear picture of how they are performing across a range of indicators.

These are vitally important not just for everyone involved in the education process, as they will help raise standards and establish clear benchmarks for all schools and colleges to work towards.

Of course, putting schools and colleges under scrutiny can be a double-edged sword.

The ones that are already performing well have spent many years establishing practices and systems to allow them to reach a level of excellence. It is now more imperative than ever that best practice and knowledge is shared between education establishments.

And many schools and colleges may not have this luxury and need to start looking at and investing in processes, which will analyze how they are performing at every life of academic life.

Products like our Datadashboard and the bespoke training and support we can offer our members can play a key role in raising standards and spotting issues before they can become problems.

And if you want to find out more about how these new minimum standards will work, then why not come along to our Annual Summit on 15^th February in London? Linda Rose from the Department of Education will be giving an overview of the new policies, so if you have any questions why not ask her directly!

Looking ahead, we are also continuing our series of free training events for teachers on the European Parliament in 2013. The first few have been a tremendous success and the next one is in Southampton on 25^th January 2013.

It’s certainly been a busy year for us at Learning Plus UK and can I just take the opportunity to thank all of you out there. It is always a pleasure to speak to so many of you at our events and online. We really appreciate your comments and ideas!

On behalf of everyone at Learning Plus UK, I would like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year!