Coordinated Admissions Process – 2018 entry

The coordinated admissions process for entry in September 2018 is ongoing. The deadline for families to submit their secondary school applications was Tuesday 31st October.

Where families have a child who is due to start school in Reception, or transfer from Year 2 at an infant school to Year 3 at a junior school, in September 2018, the application process is now in full swing and the deadline for families to apply is Monday 15^th January 2018.

Applications can be made online at: www.warwickshire.gov.uk/admissions

Please note these dates in your newsletters.

Families should contact the Admissions Service if they have any questions or concerns about their child’s school application: 01926 414143 – option 2.

Schools Forum Meeting

The next meeting of Schools Forum will be held at 1pm on Friday 01 December 2017 in Northgate House Conference Room, Northgate House, Warwick.

Papers will be uploaded to the Schools Forum webpage one week before the meeting.

 

Further information about Schools Forum

Members will be appointed to the Schools Forum for a 1 year period; elections are held in May each year. 

The Schools Forum will meet at least four times in an academic year.  

Any member of the Forum may ask for items to be placed on the agenda by writing to the Finance Manager (Resources and Schools).

Agendas and papers to be considered by the Forum will be sent out five working days in advance of the meeting.  Late items may be considered at the discretion of the Chair.  Draft minutes will be circulated within 10 working days of the meeting.

Substitute representatives (for any voting member) may attend meetings if the appointed representative is unable to attend. Substitutes will be able to vote on behalf of the member they are representing. However, attendance of appointed representatives is strongly encouraged.

Substitutes for ‘schools’ representatives can be another Headteacher or senior member of staff, that is a Deputy Headteacher, Assistant Headteacher, Bursar or person responsible for the financial management of a school.

Meetings of the Schools Forum will be open to members of the public who may observe but not take part.  The Forum may move into private session for confidential items, which, for example identify individuals or individual schools, at the discretion of the Chair. 

 

Changes to our EHCP Referral Panels

Our EHCP referral panels have been running for nearly two years now and it is timely to review our processes, building on the many successes and tweaking where we can to address any weaknesses in the system.

Overall the panel approach to decision making has been a great success.  Decisions are made jointly between representatives of the LA and schools.  This makes the decisions much more robust.  Having school representatives on the panels has also been a great way developing mutual understanding. Feedback from the Head Teachers and SENCos who have attended in this capacity has been 100% positive.

The one drawback to the system is that of time.  Warwickshire continues to have more than the national average number of referrals for assessment and indeed maintains more than the national average number of EHC Plans.  Our staffing remains slightly lower than national averages.  Understandably this leads to backlogs and delays.  We must speed up the process without adding to schools’ workload or compromising the quality of decisions.

To this end, from January 2018 the panel will follow a slightly different format.

What Stays The Same

Schools will still be expected to submit the current paperwork of:

• School referral form
• Completed Provision Matrix
• Family Conversation
• Child Young / Person’s views
• Professional reports

What Changes

SENCos invited to the join the panel in support of their referral will be expected to give an oral summary of no more than five minutes outlining:

1. the child / young person’s needs against the Code of Practice.  This should include how and when they were first recognised and what leads to the conclusion that these needs are likely to be complex, severe and requiring continued support.
2. the graduated response to the young person’s needs: what external professionals have been involved and when including any diagnoses, a summary of how their advice was put into action, monitored and evaluated and the impact this had; that is evidence of an assess-plan-do-review cycle rather than one-off assessment of need. Describe the impact of interventions and progress over time compared to their peers and ARE.
3. how have delegated funds been used, what additional support is being requested from the LA and to what end.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of the above or volunteer to represent the schools’ voice on our panels please contact me on helenkendall@warwickshire.gov.uk. 

You can find a list of Plan Co-ordinators for each area here.

Dr Helen J Kendall

SENDAR Manager and Principal Educational Psychologist

 

Consultation and determination process for 2019 entry

We are now entering the time of year when ALL schools must consider their admission arrangements for 2019 entry.

Key dates are set out below:

• Where changes are proposed for the 2019/20 arrangements, admission authorities are required to consult on their admission arrangements between 01 October 2017 and 31 January 2018. 
• Consultation for 2019/20 entry must last for a minimum of six weeks. Admission arrangements must then be determined by 28 February 2018.

While schools should take their own advice on the exact process to follow and the contents of their consultation document, all schools should follow the steps below where a consultation exercise is to be carried out:

1. Schools to send proposed admission arrangements electronically to Warwickshire County Council (via Amy Taylor in the Admissions Service: amytaylor@warwickshire.gov.uk). Please provide a closing date for the consultation exercise and contact details. The proposed arrangements will then be displayed on the Council’s website. Details should also be included on the school’s website and distributed to other parties as appropriate (see above).
2. After consultation the governing body / academy trust must then formally determine admission arrangements for the 2019/20 school year, taking into account any comments received. That decision should be made at a properly constituted meeting and minuted by the clerk. Arrangements must be determined by 28 February 2018 at the latest.
3. The school should then notify the local authority and all those who were consulted that the process is complete and confirm the determined admission arrangements. Schools must provide the local authority with a copy of the determined arrangements before 15 March 2018. These will then be displayed on the Council’s website and also published in the Council’s Composite Prospectus (which will be available from September 2018).
4. Parents or any other party then have until 15 May 2018 to object to the arrangements via the Schools Adjudicator.

Determination of arrangements when there are no changes

Where there are no changes to admission arrangements they must still be determined by the school’s governing body / academy trust. This must be done by 28 February 2018 with the arrangements then sent to the Local Authority before 15 March 2018.

 

 

Education and Learning e-Comms survey for schools

Thanks to all those who have responded to our e-Comms survey so far, which remains open until the end of this term:

This is your opportunity to give us feedback on the way the Education and Learning team, and the County Council more widely, communicates with schools.

'Heads Up' has been in circulation for just over a year now and has seen a significant rise in the number of subscribers during this period.  The online newsletter is now used as one of the main communication channels with schools and includes regular contributions from a wide range of County Council services, as well as from our partners including Public Health and Warwickshire Police.  One of the key aims of 'Heads Up' is to provide a more regular method for sharing information with schools as well as attempting to reduce the number of separate communications and publications.

Our @wcc_schools Twitter account is another channel of communication that we have tried to build on during the past year as we know so many of our schools and settings, students and parents are also busy tweeting!

We are always looking for ways that we can improve our communications with you, and would greatly value your feedback to help us do this.  We would therefore be grateful if you would take the time to complete a brief survey which should take no more than 5-10 minutes.

The survey is available at the link below until Friday 22 December 2017:

Education and Learning e-Communications Survey