Art for Relaxation

Warwickshire County Council has commissioned Arty-Folks to support those who feel at a low point in life and those wanting to support their wellbeing through an extensive programme of art and mental health courses.  

This free 3-week course is exclusively for adults working in Early Years, Primary or Secondary Schools in Warwickshire who need some creative ‘me’-time to de-stress and catch their breath.

Course Dates:

Wednesday 3rd February 2021, 4.30pm-5.30pm
Wednesday 10th February 2021, 4.30pm-5.30pm
Wednesday 17th February 2021, 4.30pm-5.30pm

What you will learn:
Each workshop will teach you a different creative techniques that can help you step back when you are feeling stressed and create a soothing and relaxing space.  This is a practical course and friendly and experienced staff will help you to create your own artwork in easy steps. Even if you don’t think you are creative give it a go, because the course is about relaxing in the company of like-minded people and switching off from worrying, rather than becoming the next Picasso!

For more information and how to join please click here

Statutory Spring 2021 School Census

You will be aware that the DFE have been considering what action to take, in response to the current lockdown position, with regards to the Spring school census, which is due to take place next week on Thursday 21st January.

We have now received confirmation that this WILL take place as originally planned and timescales will remain as scheduled.

Deadline for submission to the Local Authority (LA) will be Friday 29th January.

Whilst most of the School Census requires details of pupils on roll, additional guidance will be provided by the DFE by the end of this week with regards to data items such as school meals and class activity. To help you prepare, they have stated that ‘it is likely that this guidance will explain about how we will require details of what you would expect or what would be timetabled if schools were open as normal’.

It is vitally important that you are satisfied with the accuracy of your schools’ return before uploading it to the LA, and that it is returned by the prescribed deadline.

Prior to each census, the ICT Development Service (MIDAS) will up-load census documentation to the Warwickshire Learning Platform (WeLearn365) which can be found here and on the download site wsd.we-learn.com/downloads. These will assist you in preparing and running your census returns.

If you have any technical queries regarding the SIMS system and generating the return please contact the ICT Development Service Desk on 01926 414100.

If you have any other questions about this data collection, please contact Michelle Ali, Business Intelligence on 01926 742169 or by e-mail businessintelligence@warwickshire.gov.uk

Thank you for your continued support with these collections.

Warwick University - Online education resources for school children

As part of their Community Engagement work, Warwick University has pulled together some resources for those who are home-schooling their children.

There is a range of resources for different ages and it has been created to support parents, children and teachers during lockdown.

All resources can be accessed here.

Remote Learning: DFE tool for reviewing your remote education provision

On January 12, 2021, the Department for Education published a framework to help schools and further education (FE) providers in England identify strengths and areas for improvement in their remote education provision.

The full framework can be accessed here 

Providing remote education information to parents.

So that pupils and their parents know what to expect from their school if they need to self-isolate, or where national or local restrictions require them to remain at home, we are asking schools to publish information about their remote education provision on their websites by 25 January 2021.

Further information can be accessed here.

The template can be accessed here.

Best evidence on supporting students to learn remotely

The Education Endowment Foundation's rapid evidence assessment examines the existing research (from 60 systematic reviews and meta-analyses) for approaches that schools could use, or are already using, to support the learning of pupils while schools are closed due to Covid-19. 

When implementing strategies to support pupils’ remote learning, or supporting parents to do this, key things to consider include:

• Teaching quality is more important than how lessons are delivered
• Ensuring access to technology is key, especially for disadvantaged pupils
• Peer interactions can provide motivation and improve learning outcomes
• Supporting pupils to work independently can improve learning outcomes
• Different approaches to remote learning suit different types of content and pupils

Further details and evidence reviews can be found here

Get Help with Technology Programme

Hundreds of thousands more laptops to support disadvantaged pupils learn at home

The government has announced a further 300,000 laptops and tablets to help disadvantaged children and young people learn at home.

Part of the Get Help with Technology Programme, the 300,000 boost takes the total number of laptops and tablets for disadvantaged young people up to 1.3 million.

The full blog can be accessed here.

CPD Opportunities for Consortia/Groups of Schools.

As schools continue to navigate these challenging times, professional development is proving to be more crucial than ever to enable leaders and teachers to effectively carry out their roles.

The Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE) has put together some packages for Warwickshire schools to support this process. Some consortia have commissioned this work using their School Improvement Recovery Fund but other groups of schools may like to buy into one of the packages using their own funds. CUREE offer a range of workshop programmes that target priority areas for developing staff learning. All programmes are delivered through a sequence of online interactive sessions and practical gap tasks.

Workshop programmes are available on:

• Coaching and mentoring for school improvement and staff wellbeing
• Increasing the impact of your CPD on staff and pupil learning
• Using Research Lesson Study (RLS) to close the gap
• Removing barriers to literacy

Please see here for further detail

In-year application process - feedback wanted

As part of the ongoing process review and improvement works within the admission Service we are currently seeking feedback from schools on the In-year application process.

Thank you to those who have already responded and provided valuable feedback to inform this review.

The deadline for responses is Monday 18th January and we are asking colleagues who have not responded so far to please complete the short feedback form online here.

Road Safety Education Team - Driving Ambitions

Delivering effective learning for road safety can be challenging; even more so in these difficult and unprecedented times.  Warwickshire County Council’s Road Safety Education Team may well have had to adapt their delivery environment but not at the cost of the content!

The Driving Ambitions element of the Road Safety Education Teams’ programmes is devised and delivered to students in senior schools within the county.

Schools who already engage with Driving Ambitions have made a supreme effort to continue our workshops. We’ve had to adapt our delivery method in some cases but with others we have been able to continue our face to face discussion with students. These discussions are developed over a number of years and each year is vital.

The co-operation of our schools is so valued as this ‘life skill’ is not one that can be put on hold during a pandemic.

More so than ever students and adults alike have been asked to adapt their journey style or mode. This is where the ‘Driving Ambitions’ programme is so relevant.

Should any further information be required on our programme; please contact Alison Williams on 01926 418062.

Spring RE Bulletin from SACRE.

Please click here to access the Spring RE Bulletin from SACRE.

Senior Leaders’ Webinar – Race and Identity

As outlined in Heads Up at the beginning of the year, we have partnered with Gateway Alliance to offer you access to a series of educational leadership webinars. These webinars will be running throughout the year and will feature prominent inspirational speakers who will be addressing leadership themes through the current context in which schools are operating. 

The next webinar is coming up on Wednesday 20^th January (10:00-11:00am), is entitled “Leading on Race and Identity work in Schools” and is being led by Viv Grant – Director of Integrity Coaching, author, coach and public speaker.

This webinar will provide an introduction to the actions that senior leaders can take to advance the race equality agenda in their own settings.

It will provide an overview of:

• The personal work senior leaders must undertake in order to raise self-awareness and become confident agents for change
• Common obstacles to race and identity work in schools
• Strategies that individuals and schools can adopt to accelerate change at both a personal and organisational level

This is the 4^th in a series of 7 webinars which form part of Gateway Alliance’s Senior Leaders’ Network - CPD Programme. The Local Authority have funded schools’ access to 3 of these 7 webinars. Schools can choose which 3 are most relevant to them and, if schools wish to access more of the sessions, these can be purchased through Gateway Alliance.

HOW TO BOOK

You can book your place at these webinars by visiting the Gateway Alliance website: www.gatewayalliance.co.uk/finder/ just search subject ‘Senior Leaders’. In order to access your 3 FREE sessions you will need to use voucher code: SLweb3! when making your booking. If you already subscribe to Gateway programmes please remember to log-in before booking your places.