WE1 Early Years

Warwickshire Early Years – bringing quality to life provides access to Warwickshire's high quality learning and development programme which offer a wide range of training from statutory safeguarding to continuous professional development opportunities.

Visit the Early Years web page here for more information.

THINK who’s looking

During National Road Safety Week (19 – 25 November 2018), the Warwickshire Road Safety Education team are launching a new campaign – THINK who’s looking.

The aim of the campaign is to encourage parents and other adults, such as grandparents and carers, to think about how their actions impact on children and the importance of forming good safety habits when out and about with children near roads.  We hope that our humorous approach will make the campaign memorable for adults and will remind them that children do copy what they do.

Resources for schools include: a school poster A3 and A4.

Resources for every child: parent postcard, sticker, height chart, colouring sheet.

There are 7 postcard designs and we hope that parents will talk about the different messages.  The school poster brings together all the elements to spell out the word PARENTS.

Parents of Reception age children will be targeted during the Autumn term, and schools will receive free resources to include in reading bags during this time. For further information contact: Alison Williams, Senior Road Safety officer: 01926 418062 or email roadsafety@warwickshire.gov.uk

WE2 An empowering curriculum

Poem competition for Warwickshire

SENDIAS - change of provider and webpage

Warwickshire's Education Strategy is ahead of the game

Exam results and grades will no longer be the key focus of Ofsted inspections in England, under new plans.

Read more in this BBC article.

WE3 Family of schools

Our challenge is for all learners to enjoy a high quality learning experience.

WE4 Employability

Fair workload charter 

Warwickshire schools are going to be one of the first ones in the country to be able to recognised for the positive work undertaken in managing teacher workload.

A new initiative which is owned by and developed by yourselves in partnership with the teacher trade unions will allow schools to enable its teaching staff to rate the progress of the school against the following workload areas:

• general working conditions
• planning and marking expectations
• data collection and Communications
• school policies and access to training

Based on the results of the above survey, schools reaching a 90% threshold will be awarded the fair workload charter status. This is a kite mark that can be used in recruitment materials and general communication and promotion of the school. Given the national focus on the affects the management of workload is having on schools and staff sickness absence and turnover, then this could be a very powerful recruitment and retention tool for your school or academy trust to use to tackle these challenging issues.

The charter status will last for 24 months from when awarded.  Schools not successful at the first attempt will be able to try again in 12 months.  There will be a three week window for this process before October half term 2018. A nominal subscription cost to cover administration and the materials is £50 per school.  

To participate or for any queries please email at the earliest opportunity: fairworkloadcharter@warwickshire.gov.uk

More information is available (including the survey questions used) at the following link to frequently asked questions.

Colleges Week 15 to 19 October 2018

Colleges Week is taking place on the above dates and is an important week to showcase further education colleges.

As you will know, further education colleges are an essential part of England’s education system. Whether it’s through top-class technical education, basic skills or lifelong learning, colleges help people of all ages and backgrounds to make the most of their talents and ambitions. Rooted in local communities, they are crucial in driving social mobility and providing the skills to boost local and regional economies.

Warwickshire college group (WCG) train around 16,000 students every year, including 4,500 16 -18 year olds and 2,500 apprentices. WCG contribute's £706 million to the region’s economy each year and supports almost 29,000 jobs. I am sure you will agree that the seven WCG colleges play a key role locally, regionally and nationally. As part of colleges week 2018, WCG are planning to be especially active on social media about the work of their colleges and the successes of students and apprentices. There is after all something amazing happening at WCG every day!

Please will you support Colleges Week and share out social media posts to demonstrate your support; the hashtag is #LoveOurColleges

Below is the summary of the recent Institute for Fiscal Studies report, which you may have seen covered by the BBC. This report highlights the very significant pressures on the further education sector over recent years (pages 5-6).

Many thanks in anticipation of your support during Colleges Week.