Help us to co-produce a new Education Strategy for Warwickshire

Councillor Colin Hayfield, County Council Portfolio Holder for Education and Learning, says; ‘We have given a lot of thought to providing this document as a ‘starter for ten’ but we want the end product to look far less bureaucratic. We are truly serious about co-producing this Education Strategy; the Council is a partner round the table with headteachers and education leaders. It is your voice that we want to hear, so that you will join with us in writing the final version’. 

We have listened to headteachers. We have scrutinised data, information, compliments and complaints. We have considered strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. As a result, we are proposing the following priorities for Education in Warwickshire: 

WE1: Promoting the best possible start in life through early education

WE2: Unlocking talent, building resilience, and fulfilling the potential of our vulnerable learners:

• Children out of school
• Children at risk of under-achieving
• Children who are Looked After, through the Virtual School
• Children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
• People with social, emotional and mental health needs

WE3: Supporting successful system leadership, empowering education communities, so that Warwickshire’s Family of Schools can thrive, there are sufficient good/outstanding school places, and outcomes for Warwickshire’s children exceed national levels.

WE4: Promoting employability; offering the best possible opportunities for all learners so that the local economy can grow, young people can take on the responsibilities of adult life and adult learners contribute to a growing local economy.

In order to work towards these aims, we think we should:

• Champion
• Challenge
• Empower

What do you think? Please tell us; if you were setting out an Education Strategy for Warwickshire, what would you include?

The online consultation is open from 5 March – 2 April 2018.

Please tell your staff, parents, students…. we want to hear from a wide range of stakeholders. We will be bringing the draft Vision and Strategy to meetings through March. We have also set up some face to face focus groups with staff, parents, secondary students, primary pupils and pupils in a special school.

Please visit our questionnaire at www.warwickshire.gov.uk/ask  to register your comments.

You can also contact us by telephone: 01926 742588 or by email educationstrategy@warwickshire.gov.uk

Early Years Visioning Event 28 February 2018

Forty delegates worked in locality groups to co-produce an early years vision for Warwickshire, driven by the draft Education Strategy priority ‘the best possible start in life’. Facilitators from the Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC), Professors Chris Pascal and Tony Bertram led the session, contributing from their national and international work in early years (see below). 

Chris Pascal talked to us about:

• a can do approach; being tiggers not eeyores
• the values that drive decisions about spend
• every strategic decision should be checked back against principles and values
• early years as the foundation of democracy – children learn if they have a voice
• advocacy: asking 'what am I living out on my daily practice?'
• 'professional generosity' and collaboration rather than competition
• aspiration rather than competence
• teaching schools as an engine for the local authority to energise the system.

     

A prioritisation exercise resulted in the following, ranked, shared priorities:

1. a professionally trained workforce
2. a child-led approach that is responsive to need
3. an integrated, multi-agency system
4. inclusivity; a system that works for everyone

During discussion the following two priorities were added:

5. language-led learning in language-rich settings
6. working with parents

 

Attendees also asked for more development opportunities for headteachers, to help them to better understand early education.

Finally it was agreed that localised networks of professionals would be the way to promote a shared understanding of the vision across different professional cultures, building on the Smartstart vision.

Secondary School Offers Update - September 2018

The secondary offers for year 7 entry in September 2018 were released to families on Thursday 1 March 2018. 

The Admissions Service have processed over 7000 applications for secondary school places this year – an all-time high.

The reallocation process – where we will begin to fill any vacancies using the waiting lists – will commence from Monday 19 March. We would appreciate all secondary schools’ cooperation during this extremely busy time, including ranking and allocating criteria, as well as checking sibling links via SAM for any new/late applications.

Team members are available on: 01926 414111 – please note this is a direct line for schools so we would encourage schools ONLY to use this number wherever possible. Please do not distribute to parents/carers/other external agencies.