Free 'Inclusion Expert' training opportunity

Warwickshire Teaching School Alliance is offering free training to provide access to high quality and scalable training for EYFS practitioners across 100+ LAs, initially for the duration of one year. The award-winning training has been the result of a collaboration between Dr Sue Allingham, Daniel Sobel and Isabel Davis.

The Local Authorities that have already trialled this programme have shown tremendous results, with every setting narrowing the attainment gap and achieving outstanding GLD outcomes.

The course
The Inclusion Expert (IE) approach to online training is based on weekly learning that includes:

a.     five-minute video
b.     best practise activity
c.     quick evaluation of impact

This simple process enables staff to pick up essential knowledge and skills, whilst clearly focusing on identified children within the regular course of their work. More details can be found at:
https://inclusionexpert.com/initiative/eyfs

What do you need to do?
If you would like more information or you would like to take part, please contact Michelle Hutton at Warwickshire Teaching School Alliance: hutton.M2@welearn365.com.

Sonia Waszczak: Early Years Adviser

We would like to welcome Sonia Waszczak newly appointed as Early Years and Safeguarding Advisory Teacher to Warwickshire's Early Years team and have invited her to introduce herself in this week's Heads Up....

I have been involved in early years education for over 40 years, initially starting out as a volunteer at a  summer playscheme at the tender age of 16 years before going on to complete my teacher training.  As an Early Years lead, I taught in a range of schools in Birmingham including a special school and a community day nursery.  I am passionate about giving all of our young children the best start in life and providing a stimulating and challenging environment.  My particular areas of expertise within early years are effective pedagogy, special needs and safeguarding. 

Following a successful teaching career I took a secondment, firstly to the local authority’s specialist under-five team, working with settings and families to support children under five years with special educational needs, then moved into advisory teaching and an Area SENCo role.  In 2001, I began working at Solihull Council as an Area Inclusion Coordinator, before taking on a role as an Early Years and School Improvement Adviser supporting schools and settings, including childminders, with all aspects of early years provision.  I developed and delivered an extensive range of training courses which were very well received by practitioners. 

I felt it was time for a change, and I left Solihull at the end of 2017, to take a short break and recharge my batteries.  I then took up a temporary position as an Early Years and Safeguarding Adviser with a charity in Birmingham before applying for the Early Years adviser post in Warwickshire.

I look forward to getting to know Warwickshire, meeting colleagues and practitioners, and working together to ensure achievement of Warwickshire’s new Education Strategy. 

Outstanding Ofsted for Pathfinder Day Nursery

Congratulations to the staff at Pathfinders Nursery in Rugby who recently received ‘Outstanding’ judgements across all of the four inspection areas - leadership and management; quality of teaching, learning and assessment; personal development, behaviour and welfare; and outcomes for children.

Ofsted stated:

"The exceptional leaders and managers of the nursery create a well-organised, efficient and successful learning environment. They are highly reflective and strive to provide children with inspiring and meaningful learning experiences. Their uncompromising pursuit for excellence ensures outstanding outcomes for all children."

"The quality of teaching is consistently high. Staff fully understand the learning styles, preferences and abilities of each child. They provide innovative experiences that captivate children's curiosity and individual interests. Staff skilfully adapt and extend activities to challenge children's thinking and enhance their motivation to learn."

"The quality of interactions between staff and children is exceptional. Settling-in arrangements are well considered to ensure that all children quickly build secure relationships with their key person, which promotes their emotional well-being."

"Staff form excellent partnerships with parents. The manager implements a range of highly successful strategies to positively engage with all families and ensure that all parents are fully included in their child's learning. Staff provide detailed and accurate information regarding children's time spent at the nursery and the progress they make."

"Children's behaviour is exemplary. They are highly motivated to join in with activities and show respect for their environment, their peers and staff. Children are well mannered and consider the needs of others. They take turns in play routines and develop strong friendships with each other."

You can read the full report here: https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/16/EY557868

Advice for all headteachers: Support for children suffering ill health

The Flexible Learning Team exists to provide support to primary and secondary schools for pupils who are unable to attend school for periods of time, as a result of ill health. This covers physical illness and injury and diagnosed mental health conditions, e.g anxiety, depression, eating disorders.

For an outline of the support that is available please read the attached letter:

Flexible Learning Team - letter to all schools

The Flexible Learning Team is available to all pupils registered with a Warwickshire school.

‘Highly recommended’ Warwickshire Safe Havens - a drop in for anyone in need of mental health support

A new drop-in service has been launched in Warwickshire for anyone aged 16 and over who is feeling distressed, worried or in need of mental health support.

Warwickshire Safe Havens, a service provided by Warwickshire County Council in partnership with Mental Health Matters (MHM), has been opened in two locations - Leamington Spa and Nuneaton - and provides out of hours face-to-face and telephone support for Warwickshire residents experiencing mental distress. 

No appointment or referral is needed to visit a Safe Haven - people can walk in any time during opening hours - and carers and family members are also welcome.

The focus is on reducing immediate distress and supporting visitors to access services and opportunities available to them in the wider community. The service also offers help in creating staying well and crisis plans and users can also access a 24-hour telephone emotional support line staffed by trained counsellors. 

Read more about the launch of Safe Havens here 

Latest updates for RE subject leaders and coordinators

Please click here for the RE Autumn bulletin 2019

Half price Widget online discount for WCC schools

Did you know Warwickshire schools are entitled to a subscription for Widgit Online at 50% discount*?  

Widgit Online allows you to create, save and share symbol resources in a web browser.  Support learning and communication by creating symbol flashcards, visual timetables, vocabulary lists with no installation needed.

Documents can be shared with colleagues and pupils with a group account.  Resources can also be shared with parents by creating a link that allows them to view documents without having a Widgit Online account.

Widgit Online features speech to text, allowing reluctant or non-writers to let their voice do the talking and easily create their own documents independently. The text to speech feature then allows these non-writers to hear back what they have written.

There is also a Dual Language add-on that enables easy creation of EAL and MFL resources using the 80+ Google Translate languages. Users hear resources read out loud in both languages.

For details of account types and subscription rates go to www.widgitonline.com Register now for a 21-day free trial (any account type). 

Note: to include the free trial of the Dual Language Feature Pack, select Extras and then tick to include.

Orders can be placed by emailing: orders@widgit.com stating that you are a Warwickshire setting and including a copy of the purchase order. For official quotes, please email info@widgit.com

*Please note the one-off Dual Language add on price is not subject to discount

World Suicide Prevention Day: working together to prevent suicide

Currently one person every 90 minutes dies by suicide in the UK and approximately two thirds of these are not in contact with mental health services. 

This is why health and care partners in Coventry and Warwickshire marked World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD) on Tuesday 10 September to raise awareness of resources and services that provide vital help, and to create a culture of kindness in the region. 

For the second year in a row, the theme for WSPD was ‘working together’, emphasising the importance of collaboration and recognising that everyone can make a contribution in preventing suicide.

To mark the day, a series of partnership events were held across the region hosted by the suicide and mental health services that are available to residents. The events offered residents a chance to start conversations around suicide, focusing on early warning signs, coping strategies and provided information and support on looking after your wellbeing and the wellbeing of others. 

The partnership also launched the Stay Alive app, a free suicide prevention pocket resource designed to be a lifeline for people at risk of suicide, or for those concerned about the safety of someone. It contains local mental health and suicide prevention information all in one place, as well as customisable features like the LifeBox to store photos and memories and reasons for living. Designed for everyone, this is an easily accessible and supportive app aimed to keep minds at ease. Please consider putting information about this app in your newsletters. Find out more about the Stay Alive app here: http://ow.ly/2hwM50vT4L8 

For information about a range of mental health and wellbeing services, including face to face, telephone, online and self-help resources available in Coventry and Warwickshire, please visit: warwickshire.gov.uk/mentalhealth, www.coventry.gov.uk/mentalhealth or www.covwarkpt.nhs.uk

If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free at any time, from any phone on 116 123 (UK and ROI) or visit the Samaritans website to find details of the nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.

Autism Voices on film

Over the past year, Warwickshire students with autism have produced and starred in two innovative films showing the difficulties they face in the classroom and challenging stereotypes often held about the condition.

The Autism Voices project, led by Act for Autism with support from Warwickshire County Council’s Flexible Learning Team and Anderson Shelter Productions, began in 2018 when 12 Warwickshire secondary school children with autism were invited to take part in a four day workshop.

The session was facilitated by Tess Morton and Jane Gurnett, founders of Act for Autism, a not-for-profit social enterprise which trains school staff to help them teach autistic pupils, often through drama.

The workshop provided a safe environment for the young people to express what they thought about their condition and as a result, the students created and starred in a ten-minute film focusing on the sensory challenges they face in their school environment. 

The film was premiered to a large audience at Warwick School in July last year and went on to receive an award at the prestigious Golden Door Film Festival in New Jersey. 

Following their successful first venture, the students have gone on to produce another film Autism Voices #2 Slashing the Sterotypes, a fun yet informative piece seeking to challenge some of the common misconceptions associated with autism and offering advice to others about ways in which they can communicate to make life a bit easier.

Many of the young people who worked on the films have felt it has given them a greater sense of self-awareness and self-acceptance, and a huge confidence boost. Teachers have also been benefiting from the project after watching the films during training and have found it has helped to facilitate many useful conversations between staff and students on the topic, and given them a greater understanding of how autism affects people in many different ways.  

Both films are available to watch on the Flexible Learning Team's website.

You can also read more about Act for Autism and the project here: https://actforautism.co.uk/info/films/

For more information contact Lynda Lowe - lyndalowe@warwickshire.gov.uk

EAL SEND training

Critical Thinking - getting more out of the most able

Click on the image for a larger version of the flyer:

Updating your school contact details

The start of a new school year inevitably brings with it lots of changes, in particular with staffing, so we would like to take this opportunity to ensure the contact details we hold for you are the most up-to-date.

We would therefore be grateful if you could email any changes, specifically to admin and headteacher email addresses, through to our Insight Service: insight@warwickshire.gov.uk. 

The DfE also require any changes to be made to their Get Information About Schools website as this information is used throughout their reporting (including the school performance tables) so it's important that school names, type and headteacher details in particular are accurate.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Autumn Term Headteachers Conference

We hope you will join us at our Autumn Term Headteachers Conference, which is taking place at Stoneleigh Park on Tuesday 22 October 2019, 9am to 3.30pm.

We will launch our renewed approach to Early Help in support of the safeguarding and wellbeing of children and young people. There will be practical advice and support, together with sharing of great family support practice.

We will also be hearing from Ivan Humble whose fascinating story shows how restorative narratives have the power to transform lives: not only supporting people to move on from harm or trauma, but also building a climate of tolerance, resilience, hope and empathy.

Cost

This is a free CPD and networking opportunity.

How to register

Please confirm your attendance using the online booking form.

Further information

Please email schoolpartnerships@warwickshire.gov.uk with any queries or for further information.

You said, we did - improvements to Your HR

We would like to thank everyone who has provided feedback and given their time to share their experiences of using Your HR and what we can do to make life easier for you in schools.  

We are committed to working with you to make improvements to our service to ensure it meets your needs and during the summer the team has been working hard to implement changes as a result of the feedback received. 

Developments include the roll-out of a simplified process for new starters with a much shorter form - one page instead of 17 - which has already received positive feedback from the schools who used this last term. 

We have also introduced new and enhanced reports to provide you with accurate and up-to-date information on employees including pension scheme information and working pattern changes and in response to your requests, we have reintroduced named contacts for each school to provide a more personalised service. 

Please take a look at the attached infographic that provides a useful summary of all of the changes that we've put in place, as well as some of the areas that we are still working hard to improve.

We will be keeping schools posted on progress in all of these areas through Heads Up, so please look out here for further updates over the coming weeks.

All of your comments are really appreciated and we welcome continued feedback to enable us to work together to ensure a high quality of service is available to all Warwickshire schools. If you have any suggestions or queries please feel free to email us at weshrandpayroll@warwickshire.gov.uk.

Thank you again for your continued support and we look forward to working with you during 2019/20.

Ofsted's 2019 Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR) prototype and outline of changes

Understanding child and adolescent wellbeing

The Department for Education (DfE) has published a report looking at the influences on children and young people's wellbeing in England from the perspective of 21 practitioners.

Findings from the study found a consensus that the key factors that should be prioritised by practitioners, school leaders and government policy makers to enable a high level of wellbeing include: the nature of the overall educational and school environment; the development of a range of appropriate intrapersonal and interpersonal skills; and a stable and safe family environment.

Source: DfE Date: 12 July 2019

Further information: A system mapping approach to understanding child and adolescent wellbeing (PDF) 

Quarterly labour market bulletin - August 2019