Dear colleagues,
Welcome once again to Heads Up. It has been another incredibly busy week as we respond to current challenges in Education and continue to clarify and implement guidance from Government.
Free school meals have been in the news with a range of views and coverage. You’ll have seen that government guidance offers a number of options for schools; including caterers can provide meals or vouchers for use in the local supermarket or schools can issue vouchers through the Government’s scheme which will be with Edenred.
Should your school choose to provide meals, caterers will wish to continue to achieve the best of school food standards for our children and young people. We have been very impressed with how caterers in Warwickshire have stepped up to improve their offer, having had to change their plans so rapidly last week.
We also have increasing clarity on the provision of devices for some of our more vulnerable children and those in need to support remote learning. Thank you to all who identified where children might be lacking a device so that this need can be addressed. Warwickshire County Council has stepped in and added to the supply of devices that will be made available to complement the Government’s offer. The main challenge for us all is to acquire and distribute these as soon as we possibly can to support learners.
It’s so critical that these devices are available. The offer of remote learning is so important for the continuity of provision that it’s vital that all of our children who require support are able to access it. A big thank you goes out to all of you who have worked so hard to make sure that the education offer in Warwickshire is robust and enriching. Whilst, there has been a lot of research and quality assurance accomplished and at such a pace, it cannot replace face to face teaching – nothing really can – but you have certainly risen to the challenge.
We had a Teams call Briefing yesterday which focused on the Lateral Flow Device (LFD) testing roll out for secondary age pupils which was incredibly well attended. Many thanks to Myton School, King Edward VI School and Evergreen School and the WCC project support team for their very helpful input and sharing their experience and learning that they have all rapidly developed to respond to the government COVID-19 screening initiative. There will be further briefings, webinars and other guidance on the council’s dedicated webpage. Do keep checking this page; it is an iterative process and we are learning a lot along the way through shared learning as we look forward to further government guidance around support for the primary sector.
One of the aspects of the pandemic that has stood out for us all is the speed at which things happen and need to happen. I am always so staggered at the turn out to briefings, calls and webinars when sometimes we have little more than a day’s notice that we can provide as guidance or expectations change. That said, I am pleased to be asking you to ‘save the date’ in your diary with some good, old-fashioned notice. Seven weeks, in fact. March 4th will be the date of our next Head Teachers Conference. Planning is under way and I will share the agenda and details as soon as possible. We’ll see what’s happening to our context in the world of education at that point later this term, but we can probably safely assume that there’ll be a lot of water under the bridge in the meantime.
Have a good weekend, get your rest and relaxation and stay well everyone.
Best wishes
Ian