National pilot - reception baseline assessment 2020

Additional £24m funding for maintained nurseries

Children and Families Minister, Nadhim Zahawi, recently announced additional funding of £24 million for maintained nursery schools, during a keynote address at the Manchester School Readiness Conference.

The Department for Education has already provided supplementary funding to local authorities to enable them to protect maintained nursery school funding up until the end of March 2020, however what happens after this is yet to be decided.

Recognising the difficulties this will cause maintained nurseries and local authorities, leaving them uncertain as to whether the 2020 summer term will be fully funded, the government will provide a further £24 million to enable maintained nursery schools to offer places safe in the knowledge that these will be funded for the full 2019/20 academic year.

The minister also announced the development of an early language assessment tool, in partnership with the University of Newcastle, as well as the publication of early language pathway guidance to support local areas to develop and implement their own pathway.

You can read the full address here.

Approval of £350k grant to improve health and wellbeing of Warwickshire pupils

Last week, Cllr Peter Butlin, Deputy Leader for Finance and Property approved the addition of £304,268 of the Healthy Pupils Capital Fund (HPCF) to the 2018/19 capital programme and a direct allocation to all Warwickshire maintained schools to support in addressing their individual priorities. 

A number of different options for allocation of this funding were put forward for consideration in the proposal document. The final decision of the Deputy Leader was made to pass on the per-school amount received from the DfE, to enable all pupils of community, foundation and voluntary controlled schools in Warwickshire to benefit from the funding. A minimum and maximum allocation will be imposed to ensure smaller schools receive proportionally greater amounts than larger schools.

Cllr Butlin also agreed to a proposal being worked on for the remaining £50,000 of the HPCF to contribute towards the capital expenses of developing school breakfast clubs and other food provision initiatives to encourage healthy eating, especially in deprived areas. A separate report on this will be submitted for approval in the near future.

The funding, allocated to Warwickshire County Council from the Department for Education, is provided from the Soft Drinks Industry Levy for 2018/19 and must be used to improve the physical and mental health of children and young people by improving and increasing availability to facilities for physical activity, healthy eating, mental health and wellbeing and medical conditions.

There has been no indication from government that this grant will be repeated in future years.

Large multi-academy trusts (MATs) will receive funding directly from the DfE, whilst single and small academy trusts will have the opportunity to bid for HPCF through the Condition Improvement Fund. 

WSCB warn of the threat to Warwickshire pupils from organised crime groups

Warwickshire Safeguarding Children’s Board is urging professionals working with children and young people to be vigilant for signs of vulnerability or involvement in organised crime and to raise awareness of the dangers with children, parents and carers.

There is a growing threat to young people in Warwickshire, with school pupils being targeted and exploited by organised crime groups operating in the area.

There are known cases of gangs involved in organised crime operating in the north and south of the county, and children as young as 13 years being exploited by County Lines groups based in Birmingham and Coventry. 

This important briefing provides further information about the County Lines groups operating locally, the signs to watch out for to spot if a child or young person might be at risk, and what to do if you have serious concerns. There are also some helpful links to information and guidance on the Children's Society and Gov.uk websites.

We would strongly encourage you to share this with all staff to help them to spot the signs and so they can also make pupils aware of the dangers.

Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Awareness Day – 18 March 2019

Warwickshire multi-agency CSE, Missing & Trafficking team and its partners are supporting the NWG Child Sexual Exploitation Awareness Day on Monday 18 March. They will be highlighting the ongoing partnership work and long term approach to tackling CSE in Warwickshire with a series of activities and social media messages between 17 and 22 March.

The week is an opportunity to encourage everyone to think, spot and speak out against abuse. In recognition of the links to wider threats, there will be a particular focus on County Lines and Criminal Exploitation on Thursday 21 March.

Please support the day by sharing our messages across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and take time to recognise the signs of abuse here: www.somethingsnotright.org

Twitter @WarksCSE

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/warwickshirecse/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/warkscse/

Warwickshire youngsters help county to stub-out smoking near schools

Schools in Warwickshire are hoping to persuade parents not to smoke outside the school gates when taking their children to and from school by introducing smoke-free zones with the help of some artistic pupils. School gates are an overlooked part of the school where pupils can be exposed to smoking behaviour. Current evidence shows that children exposed to smoking on a regular basis are significantly more likely to start smoking themselves, with around 200,000 children under the age of 15 taking up smoking each year in the UK.

Designs from two children are being used by Warwickshire County Council (WCC) for smoke-free zone signs on school railings throughout the county. Their installation coincided with national No Smoking Day on 13 March - an annual health awareness day to help smokers who want to quit smoking.

The winning designs were selected by WCC Portfolio Holder for Health and Adult Social Care, Cllr Les Caborn; Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services, Cllr Jeff Morgan and Deputy Director of Public Health Helen King. A total of 30 entries were received from 15 schools with Ruby (Year 2 at Exhall Cedars Infant School) and Amelia (Year 6 at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Primary School, Studley) having their creations chosen for the official no smoking signs. They each received £100 for their class to spend as they wish.

If you would like to introduce no smoking zones around your school gates then please contact WCC’s Public Health team at phadmin@warwickshire.gov.uk. Interested schools will be provided with two no smoking signs and a toolkit that has been designed to equip schools with the information they need to adopt or update current smoke-free policy.

For those who would like to stop smoking, you are four times more likely to quit for good with the help of a trained Stop Smoking Advisor. There is support available in Warwickshire - go to quit4good.warwickshire.gov.uk to find out more.

Update from School Health

National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP)

Mop up sessions for the 2018-19 National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) will finish at the end of the month.  School Health would like to thank schools for their assistance in the smooth running of this programme.  Following a review of the NCMP results we are continuing to contact parents of children who have been recorded as “very over weight”. 

We are suggesting that families access the Fitter Futures programmes which run throughout the county supporting children and families with weight management concerns.  

Upcoming event

• The national Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) awareness day is taking place on 18th March so School Health will be in secondary schools during the month raising awareness of this important subject.

Our contact details

ChatHealth - young people can contact us directly using our confidential text messaging number: 07507 331525

ChatHealth Parentline - parents can contact us directly using our confidential text messaging number: 07520 619376

Referrals to the service - referral forms have been sent to schools and are on the Warwickshire School Health and Wellbeing website

Reading for Meaning - Reading for Life course

Agenda for Headteachers' Conference - 21 March

The Spring Term Headteachers' Conference is next week, Thursday 21 March and you can now view the final agenda for the morning.

Venue: Stareton Hall, Stoneleigh Park, Stoneleigh, Kenilworth CV8 2LZ.

Time: 8.30am – 12.30pm

Directions: For SAT Nav please use postcode CV8 2LG

Parking: There is plenty of onsite parking available free of charge. Click here to view a map for parking directions.

To help you plan your journey you can access live travel updates at https://roadworks.org

Further information: Handouts and evaluation forms will be issued online following the conference. Please feel free to bring along your own hard copy of the agenda on the day.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Support for governors and clerks

Annual Governors' Conference

Warwickshire's Annual Governors’ Conference will take place on Thursday 13 June 2019. Confirmed speakers include Ian Budd, the newly appointed Assistant Director for Education at Warwickshire County Council (starting 1 April) and Emma Knights, Chief Executive of the National Governance Association.

Further details, including venue, will be shared in the near future. 

Clerks' briefing well supported

Celebrating excellence and long service in education across the county

The fifth 'Excellence in Warwickshire' awards took place on Wednesday 6 March in Kenilworth, which celebrates the achievements in education during the previous academic year.

Recognising the hard work and commitment of not only headteachers, but also governors, teaching staff, pupils and key services of the council, the event shone a light on all the contributions that go into keeping schools in the county at a high standard. 

You can read more about the event here.

Successful Skills Conference focuses on higher level skills

More than 100 people from Warwickshire’s business and education communities came together at Warwickshire County Council’s (WCC’s) annual skills conference on 6 March at Stoneleigh Park, Kenilworth.

Representatives from the worlds of business and education discussed ways higher level skills can help drive the region’s economic growth.

Key messages delivered at the conference

1. Monica Fogarty, Chief Executive, WCC outlined the priorities of the new all-age Careers Strategy which the Council is currently developing and will consult on in the spring with a view to publication in the summer.

2. David Ayton-Hill, Economy & Skills Group Manager, WCC, gave delegates plenty of key data and information to consider about the county’s skills picture now, and in the future including:

• Between 2012-2022, 60% of jobs that will need filling will require higher level skills

• Higher level skills are those needing qualifications at Level 4 and above. (Level 4 includes: Higher Apprenticeships, Certificate of Higher Education, Higher National Certificate and Level 4 NVQ.)

• The attributes associated with higher level skills and increasingly needed are: higher cognitive functions of creativity and processing complex information; social and emotional skills such as taking initiative, management and leadership; and technological skills including advanced IT skills and programming.

• Despite Warwickshire seeing a strong growth in the proportion of the population with a Level 4+ qualification (increasing from 31% in 2010 to just over 40% in 2017), recent data suggests that up to 50% of people with these higher level qualifications are working in roles that do not require them.

• There is a need to better connect our businesses with our education providers to enable a better matching of roles, skills and behaviours to support our continued growth and make best use of this growing highly skilled population.

3. Cllr Peter Butlin, Deputy Leader of WCC announced an innovative Apprenticeship Levy Transfer Programme for small businesses.  Many large employers, including the Council, struggle to fully utilise their Apprenticeship Levy.  Utilising the new flexibilities, the Council aims to transfer up to £300,000 per year to help support smaller, non-levy paying businesses, such as organisations operating in the adult social and child care sector, and cover their apprenticeship training costs.  

4. Delegates also heard an interesting summary of how employers can access the graduate talent pool from Professor Pat Tissington, Academic Director of Employability and Skills, University of Warwick;  insights into how FE colleges can help, from Neil Coker, Director of Warwickshire College, Rugby and finally an overview of the range of exciting skills initiatives being undertaken at The Coleshill School from Headteacher, Ian Smith-Childs.

5. Lively discussion took place round the tables, coming up with a number of ideas of how WCC, businesses and education providers can help businesses tackle skills shortages and gaps.  Several delegates stressed the importance of identifying and communicating changing future skills needs as soon as possible to enable providers to respond by aligning their provision. The County is going to explore ways of doing this. 

The Skills Conference is a key element of Warwickshire County Council's £3 million Skills for Employment programme which has funded more than 40,000 careers and employability activities in more than 600 local businesses during the last four years.

For further information about the programme please e-mail skillsforemployment@warwickshire.com