Staff changes within Education and Learning

Safeguarding and Intervention

As you will be aware, Hayley McDonagh has now taken up the role of Interim Service Manager for Learning and Performance for the next academic year following the departure of Jane Spilsbury at the end of August. Hayley's previous role of Safeguarding and Intervention Manager is now being shared between three very experienced colleagues:

1. Anne Brennan - Safeguarding Ofsted complaints (1 day per week).  Anne joins us from Coventry City Council (annebrennan@warwickshire.gov.uk).
2. Margot Brown - School Improvement Fund Bid (2 days per week). Some of you will know Margot from her previous headship at Priors Field Primary School and through her role as consortia and Area Analysis Group chair.  Margot will support the roll out of the School Improvement Fund bid and oversee the role of the LIOs allocated to each consortium (margotbrown@warwickshire.gov.uk).
3. Dave Smith - supporting Category C and D schools/schools causing concern (2 days per week). Dave is a former primary headteacher and experienced school improvement professional. His brief is primarily LA maintained schools but he will have an overview of all category C and D schools, including secondary schools (davesmith@warwickshire.gov.uk).

Access and Organisation

In last month’s Heads Up we informed schools that Sarah Mills, service manager for Access and Organisation will be leaving the authority later this month to take up a new role in Coventry. 

John Edwards is the interim service manager who has been appointed to cover Sarah’s role, initially until Christmas, and who is already in post to ensure a smooth handover when Sarah leaves us on 25 October. John was previously the Strategic Commissioner for Education Services in Worcestershire with responsibility for a wide range of education functions including early years and childcare, pupil place planning, school admissions, school transport including SEND transport and school capital programmes.

Structure Charts

The structure chart for Education and Learning is here. Please find links below to structure charts for the teams within Education and Learning:

Access and Organisation - John Edwards, Interim Service Manager

Learning and Performance - Hayley McDonagh, Interim Service Manager

Vulnerable Learners - Pat Tate, Service Manager

Update on the National Funding Formula

Local Authority Multi Academy Trust (LA MAT) Update

The Council's Joint Managing Directors have explored in detail the possibility of Warwickshire developing a Local Authority Multi-Academy Trust(s).  This work was undertaken following the publication of the ‘Education Excellence Everywhere’ white paper in March 2016, and the Council's Cabinet Paper of October 2016. 

Very helpfully, Head Teachers and Warwickshire Schools have given considerable time and engagement to this work, and in particular expressed direct views through the headteacher reference group.  Nationally, the policy context has been less than clear and at the same time it has become apparent that there are mixed appetites and/or perceived benefits to be gained from a LA MAT(s). Consequently, recommendation will be made to Cabinet in December 2017 that, given the change of emphasis nationally, the Local Authority should not, at this point in time, pursue establishment of a LA MAT.  The Cabinet paper will emphasise Warwickshire's continued support for both maintained schools and academies, and recommend that the focus should now be on the strengths of the current mixed market.  The Council's commitment to the Warwickshire 'Family of Schools' remains as strong as ever and we hope this will simply be seen as a pragmatic position.

Our thanks to all who contributed to this evaluation.

New Exclusions Guidance

What you need to know

New guidance launched by the DfE has clarified the rules on how schools must implement any fixed-term or permanent exclusions that they make. With evidence of disproportionately high rates of exclusions amongst the most vulnerable learners, particularly those with special educational needs and disabilities, there is now a stronger emphasis on monitoring the experiences of certain groups of pupils.

Schools have a statutory duty not to discriminate against pupils on the basis of certain protected characteristics, which includes all those that schools know or suspect have disabilities of any type. Schools should also give particular consideration to the fair treatment of pupils from groups who are more vulnerable to exclusion - these include children looked after and those with EHC plans. The guidance strengthens expectations that schools will now need to take into consideration, for example the duty to ‘comply’ with the Equality Act 2010 and not just have regard to it.  Schools maintain responsibility for the decisions made throughout the exclusion process and where cases are subject to independent review or disability discrimination tribunal, schools must be able to demonstrate evidence based decision making that is robust, lawful, reasonable and that a fair process was followed.

It is vital that schools make all the reasonable adjustments that they can to support those with disabilities and/or special educational needs before taking any decision to exclude. This includes, where necessary, seeking and following expert advice and expending additional resources to support children.

It is also important that the processes followed by the school in investigating the exclusion, including in particular the Governing Body Disciplinary Committee stage where this is relevant, is done in a fair, open and transparent manner. It should be ensured that parents have access to all the evidence being used to justify an exclusion, that decisions are full and frank as well as being given as soon as possible, and that the child/young person themselves are given the opportunity to put their side of the story forward.

The offer of Early Help to the families of the most vulnerable pupils and the existence of the inclusion of good quality assessments and multi-agency work is also now considered to be a necessity.

The new DfE guidance focuses more on the experience of the child and clearly outlines expectations regarding openness and transparency in particular and in relation to the concerns at the high number of exclusions for vulnerable pupils.

Stronger emphasis on the need to ensure that all exclusions remain lawful has prompted Warwickshire to conduct a review across the county, findings have suggested the need to offer specific training which all schools will be encouraged to attend. Training will focus on areas such as the requirement for appropriately trained and experienced panel members, a focus on roles, responsibilities and boundaries and the importance of evidenced based decision making.

To ensure that they remain compliant with the new exclusions guidance, it is important that Warwickshire schools address training needs now. If you have any concerns or require advice applying the new DfE guidance prior to attending training, it is strongly recommended that you contact Warwickshire Legal Services on 01926 412361 or schoolenquiries@warwickshire.gov.uk at your earliest opportunity.

Exclusions Line - 01926 738353

exclusions@warwickshire.gov.uk

Department for Education Statutory Guidance on Exclusions

Further consultation on Ofsted short inspections

Ofsted is running a further consultation on proposals to change the short inspection process. This follows on from the Short inspections of good schools, the initial consultation that ran between 15 June and 18 August 2017.

Ofsted are now seeking views on the following proposals:

• Where there are serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, inspectors will continue to convert short inspections to a full inspection, usually within 48 hours.

• Where inspectors are not completely confident that the school would receive its current grade following a section 5 inspection, Ofsted will publish a letter setting out the school’s strengths and areas for improvement. A section 5 inspection will still follow, but “typically within 1-2 years”. This is the case where: 
  • Inspectors feel the school is no longer meeting the requirements for ‘good’, but the standard of education remains acceptable and there are no safeguarding or behaviour concerns. This will give schools time to address any weaknesses and seek support.
  • Inspectors feel the school may be improving to ‘outstanding’. This is to give schools time to consolidate strong practice (in this scenario, requests for earlier inspections will be considered).

If approved, these changes would take effect from January 2018.

Full details of the proposals are set out in the Short inspections of good schools: maintained schools and academies document.

The consultation period closes at 23:45 on 8 November 2017. 

2018 School Induction Dates

We sincerely apologise for the delay in confirming the school induction dates for 2018.

The dates have now been agreed and are the provisional dates which were originally sent to schools some time ago:

Central Area: Wednesday 27th June 2018

Southern Area: Tuesday 3rd July 2018

Northern Area: Thursday 5th July 2018

Eastern Area: Tuesday 10th July 2018

Following feedback that was received when the dates were originally circulated, it has been agreed that in subsequent years (starting in 2019) there will be one induction date for the whole county, rather than one date in each area. This date will be set by the School Organisation and Planning Team.

Key School Admission Dates for October

11+ results distributed

11+ results letters were sent on Friday 13 October 2017 to parents/carers of students that sat the Warwickshire 11+ test between 09 and 29 September 2017. A copy of the letter has been sent to all Warwickshire grammar, primary and junior schools.

Secondary 2018 applications closing date

The closing date for on time secondary school applications is 5pm on Tuesday 31 October 2017. All primary and junior schools have been contacted by our service to check that the list of current year 6 students is correct. Schools with access to SAM can view how many are yet to have made a secondary school application by viewing the Secondary 2018 Leavers Report. Taking into consideration that late applications will not be considered until after offer day on 01 March 2018, it would be appreciated if you could assist in chasing families with outstanding applications.

Parents can apply online at: http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/applyforschool and will receive the offer of a school place on 01 March 2018 by email. As of 06 October, 4227 applications have been made by Warwickshire residents.

Reception and Junior 2018 process open

A letter and information leaflet was sent to all Warwickshire residents due to start school or transfer to Junior school in September 2018. It would be helpful if all infant schools with access to SAM could check that their Junior 2018 Leavers Report. If there are any changes that should be made to your list please inform our service. As of 12 October, 2624 reception and 665 junior applications have been made by Warwickshire residents.

Admission arrangements consultation period

In accordance with the school admissions code we are now entering the consultation period for 2019/20 admission arrangements. All own admission authority schools must determine their admission arrangements each year and should have received correspondence from our service in relation to this recently, if not please contact our service for the information to be resent.

Dedicated school phone lines

Please be reminded that we have a dedicated line (01926 414111) for all schools due to the high volume of calls received by our general number. There is also a dedicated exclusions line: 01926 738353.

Updates on starters and leavers

We endeavour to keep our data up to date and therefore appreciate if you could continue to send our service the details of students that have started at your school and the details of those that have left, including where they have gone if possible.

School Transport Consultation

Further to the article in last month’s Heads Up edition, the home to school transport consultation is still open and runs until 02 November 2017. Full details on the consultation can be found at: https://askwarks.wordpress.com/

Please ensure you have read through these 7 proposed changes. Any comments are welcomed and there are a number of ways you can submit comments, all of which are detailed on the consultation page. It would be helpful if you could include information on the consultation in your next newsletter. Please be advised that anyone currently receiving transport was advised of the consultation in writing on 04 September 2017.

Education and Learning e-Comms survey for schools

This is your opportunity to give us feedback on the way the Education and Learning team, and the County Council more widely, communicates with schools.

'Heads Up' has been in circulation for just over a year now and has seen a significant rise in the number of subscribers during this period.  The online newsletter is now used as one of the main communication channels with schools and includes regular contributions from a wide range of County Council services, as well as from our partners including Public Health and Warwickshire Police.  One of the key aims of 'Heads Up' is to provide a more regular method for sharing information with schools as well as attempting to reduce the number of separate communications and publications.

Our @wcc_schools Twitter account is another channel of communication that we have tried to build on during the past year as we know so many of our schools and settings, students and parents are also busy tweeting!

We are always looking for ways that we can improve our communications with you, and would greatly value your feedback to help us do this.  We would therefore be grateful if you would take the time to complete a brief survey which should take no more than 5-10 minutes.

The survey is available at the link below until Friday 22 December 2017:

Education and Learning e-Communications Survey

New Education and Learning Calendar

We are pleased to introduce a new online calendar containing information on events, meetings and training organised by Education and Learning in Warwickshire. You can view the calendar at this link, and below:

Subscribing 

The calendar is in the format of a google calendar, which means you can subscribe to it on various calendar software packages. When you subscribe, the calendar will stay up to date if there are changes made to the events.

We strongly recommend you subscribe to the calendar using the methods in the document linked below, rather than importing individual/multiple events into your calendar. Subscribing will allow events to remain up to date, while importing does not.

If you have any queries, do get in touch on schoolpartnerships@warwickshire.gov.uk.  We will do our best to help with any issues you have subscribing, but cannot advise on the individual configurations of schools' calendar software.

Find instructions for subscribing to the calendar here.