Training and CPD for early years practitioners

Warwickshire Teaching School Alliance concentrates on what works in early years education, so educators and leaders improve through encounters with excellent practice within and beyond their immediate environment.

This continuing professional development service is led via an online platform called 'Warwickshire Early Years – Bringing Quality to Life’. In the past 24 months over 2,000 practitioners have attended training.

This offer includes statutory training such as first aid and safeguarding training, as well as courses related to improving the quality of teaching and learning. 

Upcoming courses

Performance Management for Support Staff - 20 June 2019, 9.30am - 1pm

Cost - £45

The Performance Management Review process for Support Staff - looking at a process for enabling school support staff to be more effectively performance managed, to enable more clearly defined, relevant personal / business objectives to be cascaded, and support staff to gain a greater understanding of the importance and expected standards within their role. This course will provide School Business Managers and other Line Managers with an understanding of the process and how to effectively implement it, to ensure transparency and consistency.

If you would like to book a place on the above course, please call 07795 367337 or email Helen Axon on axon.h1@welearn365.com

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Positive Behaviour, Positive Children - 3 July 2019, 9.30am - 12.30pm, Warwick

Cost - £45

This is an invaluable short course for anyone working with children in settings for under fives. 

The course promotes new approaches to managing behaviour that have been tested in numerous projects across the UK and has had an overwhelmingly positive benefit on the wellbeing of the children, as well as the wellbeing of the staff. It teaches a common-sense approach with useful tips that every learner can directly employ themselves the next time they work with children.

How many times have learners been on a course and thought, “that’s all very well but it wouldn’t work with our children”? This course only teaches methods that actually work in a front line situation. Simple methods that can really work and a tutor that has actually experienced the behaviour described, make this course an essential introduction to positive behaviour.

Course Aims

• To promote positive behaviour for children under five
• To highlight a series of practical solutions for dealing with negative behaviour
• To illustrate how to use positive behaviour techniques to extend and improve play
• To inspire learners to spend less time on maintaining behaviour and more on having fun.

This course meets the following:

• EYFS areas of learning and development – Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language
• Characteristics of Effective Learning – Playing and Exploring, Active Learning, Creating and Thinking Critically
• Play Types – NA 

Book this course

The full training programme can be accessed at www.warwickshireearlyyears.co.uk

 

DfE consultation: Character and resilience in young people

The Department for Education has appointed a new advisory group of experts looking at how to support schools in England to run more activities to develop children’s character and resilience.

They are now seeking views from teachers, community groups, parents and young people on the important of character and examples of the best non-academic activities and provision in schools, colleges and other education settings.  Feedback from the consultation will be used to help the advisory group further refine their thinking in relation to the development of character and children and young people.

The consultation closes on 5 July 2019.

You can read more and find the online survey here. 

Exciting new nurturing inclusion training

Warwickshire schools can now benefit from a new and exciting nurture training package.

This bespoke training replaces the three day 'Theory and Practice of Nurture Groups' course that has previously been offered to schools and provides more flexibility with training being adaptable to individual settings.

The contents of the package, delivered by trainers from the Educational Psychology Service and Specialist Teaching Service, can be tailored according to your school's needs and is suitable for those looking to establish a nurture group, introduce nurturing interventions or develop existing nurture. The training can also be adapted so it can be delivered to a small cluster of schools.

Core modules include:

• Attachment theory
• Using assessment to inform intervention
• Setting targets
• Establishing groups
• Whole staff overview

Optional modules include:

• Establishing a nurture room
• Planning the timetable and curriculum delivery
• Nurturing activities
• Working with families

The course is delivered over four half-day sessions and is aimed at 4-8 staff selected from SLT, teachers and teaching assistants. In addition there is a whole staff twilight training session available.

Cost: £2,100

For more information and to discuss your school's requirements please use one of the contacts below:

tammymason@warwickshire.gov.uk

eileenkell@warwickshire.gov.uk 

sarahovens@warwickshire.gov.uk

National project to provide 'Better RE' in primary schools

The National Association of Teachers of RE (NATRE) has received generous funding to offer a discounted Bronze membership to eligible primary schools.

The 'Primary RE 1000' project aims to give access for 1000 primary schools to lots of high-quality resources, audit tools, exemplar plans and classroom ideas and contact with a local RE teacher group to provide additional support to help subject leaders gain confidence.

Eligible schools will receive a unique Primary Bronze two-year membership for only £55, (normally £150). This is only possible due to generous backing of the project.

If you would like to take part in Primary RE 1000 and check your eligibility, please contact the RE Facilitator for Warwickshire SACRE, Jennifer Jenkins - jenniferjenkins@warwickshire.gov.uk 

Further information can be found on the NATRE website, however please note that school will need to contact Jennifer Jenkins to be able to benefit from the discount and are not advised to sign up directly via the website. 

Wonderful new music project at Nicholas Chamberlaine school

A wonderful new music project is all set to launch in September 2019 at Nicholas Chamberlaine School. A new partnership between the Griffin Schools Trust, Warwickshire Music Hub and the Music in Secondary Schools Trust (MiSST) will create amazing opportunities for young musicians. 

MiSST already leads major music projects in London based schools and this exciting new project will be their first outside of the capital.

Headteacher Dr. Louise Newman says; ‘This is such an important mission for the Nicholas Chamberlaine community.  It is about empowering our students and enabling them to be confident and creative learners. We are delighted to be working in partnership with Warwickshire Music and the Warwickshire Music Hub to support the MiSST vision and curriculum’.

240 year 7 students will be offered the chance to learn one of a range of instruments, all provided by the Warwickshire Music Hub.  The school music team will work alongside specialist instrumental teachers from Warwickshire Music to provide every child in year 7 with a comprehensive music education and the opportunity to learn an instrument and play in an orchestra.

Director of Warwickshire Music, Jeremy Dibb, says; ‘We are very pleased to support the vision of The Griffin Trust and the work of MiSST. This is such an important statement about the value of music for young people in schools and we look forward to launching this initiative with a visit by the National Youth Orchestra ‘Inspire’ ensemble in July’.

CPD for teachers of A Level Computer Science

Important: Change to May Bank Holiday

The early May bank holiday in 2020 will move from Monday 4 May to Friday 8 May to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day, enabling people to pay tribute to those who served in one of the most significant events in our country's history. You can read the announcement from last week on the Gov.uk website.

Warwickshire school term dates have been updated to reflect this, with Monday 4 May 2020 now designated a normal school day.  The revised WCC calendar is available online as usual and can be viewed via the link below:

School Term Dates and Holidays

We encourage schools to communicate the change to staff and parents as soon as possible, to minimise any disruption.

The WES HR Advisory Team will be providing information to subscribing schools explaining some of the implications of this. Schools can contact the WES HR Advisory Team or their own HR provider for further advice on specific HR queries.    

For any other queries, please contact schoolorganisation@warwickshire.gov.uk

 

Ethical Leadership for a better education system

Key note speaker at the Headteachers' Conference, Carolyn Roberts, has written a book on Ethical Leadership.

The book aims to set out a new vision for leadership in schools, focusing on developing a system that will maintain ethical standards. 

To find out more about the book, or to get yourself a copy, click here and enter the discount code FLR40 to get 20% off.

New Careers Support and grant opportunity for schools

Access to free expert advice on careers strategy, Gatsby benchmarks and careers-related requirements of the new Ofsted framework is one of the forms of new support to be provided by the Council’s Skills for Employment programme for the next academic year. The opportunity to apply for a match-funded grant of up to £3,000 to fund sustainable careers provision is another key form of support available.

The full specification for the Skills for Employment programme was e-mailed to careers lead contacts in schools on 4 June 2019. It was developed following consultation visits with 22 schools between March and May this year when we asked about the main challenges schools face in meeting the requirements of the national careers strategy.

Read the full programme specification.

This is the fifth consecutive year the programme has offered the match-funded £3,000 grants.  After listening to the challenges facing schools we have extended activity and support which may be funded to cover the following:

• Development programmes/projects such as: extending work experience to additional year group; employer engagement and managing contact with them; planning and delivering in-house development sessions for curriculum colleagues; developing Careers resources for curriculum colleagues to use in lessons; planning and ta B
• Careers Programme Management software/ licenses g. to manage all aspects of work experience and related pupil profiling/tracking.
• Preparation for a Careers Quality Award/Accreditation
• Preparation for a Careers Quality Award/Accreditation

Guidance and application forms for the grant are available here:

Capability and Capacity Grant 2019/20 Guidance and Application Form

Skills for Employment Development Project Proposal Form

The deadline for applications is 5pm on 28 June 2019.

Briefing sessions for careers leaders on the new Skills for Employment programme are being held on 18 June 4pm - 5pm at North Leamington School and 19 June 4pm - 5pm at the Nuneaton Academy.The sessions will also include an update from the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) about how the new Warwickshire Careers Hub announced on 20 May will be developed and implemented. The Council’s Skills for Employment programme will work closely with the new hub to ensure the careers support available to schools is as effective as possible and the funding available is used to maximum effect.

If you have any questions about the Skills for Employment programme, please contact glennrobinson@warwickshire.gov.uk