WTSA Early Years SLEs

The Warwickshire Teaching School Alliance (WTSA) has appointed two further EY Specialist Leaders of Education to provide Early Years support for schools and settings across Warwickshire. The WTSA are currently involved in DfE projects to support familiarisation and readiness to adapt to the significant upcoming EYFS reforms, so we are very pleased to be adding to our specialist team guiding the sector through this crucial year. The successful candidates were Jennie Hopkins from St Patricks Catholic Primary School and Charlotte Fawbert from Emscote Infants School. 

SEND & Inclusion Change Programme – New Processes for Panels and Alternative Provision

As part of the SEND and Inclusion Change Programme in Warwickshire County Council, we aim to provide every child with access to high quality education so they can achieve their full potential. We want to work together to improve outcomes for our children and young people with SEND by promoting inclusion in mainstream settings, giving schools the skills and resources to meet the needs of learners and building the confidence of parents and carers.   

We would like to invite partners to events to hear about new processes in the following areas:  

• Alternative Provision: to allow an efficient and effective operating model and ensure statutory compliance. Led by Marie Rooney, Strategic Lead for Alternative Provision 

• Needs-Focussed Panel Processes: to ensure clear, fair, and transparent decision-making processes in accordance with the SEND Code of Practice and clear guidance to educational settings on their accountabilities and responsibilities. Led by Matt Greenhalgh, Strategic Lead for Children With Disabilities.  

Live Broadcasts are planned via Microsoft Teams on Monday 29th March at 2-3pm and Wednesday 31st March at 3.30-4.30pm. Invitations will be sent to SENCos and Behavioural Leads, but if anyone else is interested in attending please email sendchange@warwickshire.gov.uk and an invitation with a link to the broadcast will be sent. 

There will be an opportunity to ask questions during the event via the live chat box.   

Children and young people asked to help shape Child Friendly Warwickshire

Children and young people across Warwickshire are being asked to help shape the county as part of a new initiative which aims to make it the best place it can be to grow up in.

As part of the bold new plan called Child Friendly Warwickshire, the county council has launched a survey to ensure inclusion of their views and opinions.

The wide-ranging aims of Child Friendly Warwickshire includes engaging business and community groups as well as council services to work together to enrich opportunities for children and young people.

The council hopes to work with a wide variety of organisations and businesses to ensure children’s needs are rooted in collective thinking, planning and action.

Child Friendly Warwickshire will be formally launched in the coming months and will be an open invitation to organisations of all kinds to ensure the county is a safe place full of great opportunities for children.

The project forms part of a wider £12 million programme of change in the way the Children’s and Families Services work, partly funded by the Department for Education. The service provides support for children and young people up 25-years-old and under the changes it will invest in and strengthen relationships, invest in early intervention, target resources to areas of high need to support children and families affected by domestic abuse, mental health and substance misuse and invest in improving outcomes for children in care and young people who have experience of care.

Under the plan, the voices and influence of children will be integrated in shaping services with ambitions to increase health and happiness, ensure stability with their families and communities and that they are able to enjoy learning and have strong employment opportunities. Warwickshire already has an active Youth Council made up of passionate young people, which will play a key role.

The council is asking as many children and young people as possible to complete a short, anonymous survey. All views shared will help understanding of what Child Friendly Warwickshire could look and feel like and the council’s work to deliver it. Children and young people can access the survey here.

Urgent Plea from University of Warwick for Secondary Trainee Placements

From Professor Kate Ireland, Director of the Centre for Teacher Education at University of Warwick:

I am writing to follow up on a communication sent to all our ITE partner schools regarding a request for you to consider whether any of the schools in your Alliance, Trust, Local Authority, or any of your wider contacts, has the capacity to offer a placement to one of our PGCE Secondary trainees.

I recognise the demands of taking on an additional trainee teacher and thank you to those of you who have offered placements already. We still need to secure placement offers to accommodate several Secondary trainees. Their subjects, along with their home localities, are shown below:

• Art & Design -    Warwick, Solihull, Smethwick, Congleton
• Biology -            Southam, Coventry, Tamworth
• Chemistry -        Milton Keynes, Cheltenham
• Drama –             South Birmingham
• English -             London, Nuneaton, Smethwick, Leamington, Coventry
• History -             Warwick, Kenilworth, Coventry
• Maths -               Leamington
• MFL French -     Coventry
• MFL German -    Leamington

If you can offer placement experience for a trainee, please email me directly (K.M.Ireland@warwick.ac.uk) , email M.Christensen@warwick.ac.uk (Secondary Partnership Coordinator) or partnership@warwick.ac.uk 

Schools do not have to have previous experience of hosting trainees, but we would require them to have both a professional mentor contact for the school and a separate subject mentor for the day to day training needs. All support and guidance for mentors/placements can be provided by us at CTE, and we’re happy to discuss flexible options for placement experience.

Thank you for your consideration and continued support.

Best wishes,

Kate

Share your views on the Schools Admissions Service

Our Schools Admissions Service is currently being reviewed and we’d love to get feedback on the service that you have received from us and how we might be able to better support you. We’ve set up a short survey for you, or your staff who are involved in admissions, to complete.

We’d be very grateful if you could take this opportunity to share your views before March 28: School Admissions Service - Schools’ Questionnaire

SACRE virtual Training for Secondary RE Leads

Teaching the Abrahamic Faiths at Secondary, with particular focus on Judaism and Islam - This session, led by Dr Susan Yore and Professor Pauline Kollontai of York St John University, will focus on an overview of the Abrahamic Faiths and their connections, as well as faith-specific sessions on Islam and Judaism, relevant to teaching KS3 and KS4.

Thursday 24 June 2021 4.00-6.00pm on Microsoft Teams. Sign up for this session using the Event Brite link here.

The PIPA Trial

The PIPA Trial is exploring the effectiveness of an online resource for parents/carers to help prevent depression and anxiety in young people. The trial is being coordinated by the University of Warwick.

We will be recruiting families of young people aged 11-15 years from Birmingham, Coventry and surrounding areas and we are looking to collaborate with secondary schools to promote the trial and engage with families. The involvement for schools is very easy and minimal – we will work with a key contact in your school (a mental health/safeguarding lead or similar) to sign a letter of agreement and send out an invitation to families (we will provide all necessary documents).

The PIPA Trial is completely free of cost to families and schools and is conducted completely online. Parents/carers and young people who are eligible to take part will be asked to complete some questionnaires and will receive access to a range of online parenting resources.

This is a great opportunity for schools to get involved in the drive to improve youth mental health and to support students and families, particularly during these unprecedented times.

If your school is interested in getting involved and would like more information, please contact the PIPA Trial Team:

• Email: PIPA@warwick.ac.uk
• Phone: 02476574316 or 02476575078
• Website: www.warwick.ac.uk/pipa

New bite-sized wellbeing resources

• Two new bite-sized curriculum-linked activities to support young people to deal with worry and unhelpful thoughts
   
• ​New resouces help young people to build and maintain good connections, at a time when they need it most
   
• A Mind Tool for teachers to look after their own wellbeing​

Opportunity for free whole school coaching training: School Genie pilot summary and details of webinar

As leaders, you have multiple demands on your time and skills. Few schools have a specialist on hand to help them build the social capital in their
staff body so that all can truly flourish.

In your school you may have someone with the latent skills and disposition to become a school Genie - someone who can be trained in the art of seeing and
being, catalysing trust and coaching so that your staff can thrive.

The Schoolgenie Programme provides 7 days of training throughout the year - a combination of weekdays and weekends - and is an empowering and transformational journey for your Genie or Genies.

Find out more at a bespoke webinar on 24th March at 5pm or 25th March at 8pm. 

The direct link to these meetings are:

Thrive at Work

A number of schools throughout Coventry & Warwickshire are currently working towards their Thrive at work awards and are seeing the benefits.

Thrive at Work is fully funded by both Coventry City Council and Warwickshire County Council.  There is no cost and there is lots of support available to help you achieve this.

Thrive at Work is a workplace commitment with criteria and guidelines on creating a workplace that promotes employee health and wellbeing, focusing on key organisational enablers of health such as attendance management, policies and procedures in addition to health areas such as mental, musculoskeletal and physical health and promoting healthy lifestyles.

It is designed to maximise the potential of your employees and drive results to your bottom line through reduced sickness absence, improved retention, increased resilience and more productivity by assisting you to create a healthier and happier workforce.

There are four levels to the programme at which an organisation can achieve accreditation.  Each level covers a number of different themes, starting at the Foundation level and progressing on to Bronze, Silver and Gold levels. Organisations can set the level they want to achieve and work at their own pace to implement the criteria.

Once registered to the programme the Thrive at Work Commitment and supporting toolkit will be made accessible to organisations. They will be given a secure login area to the online portal to upload supporting evidence towards accreditation. 

The Thrive at Work Online Portal guides you step by step through the process and when used in conjunction with our free extensive online toolkit it doesn’t just tell you what you need to do but also gives you the ‘how to’ by collating into one place relevant wellbeing resources.

The Thrive at Work team are on hand to offer support and assist with any queries you may have. They will keep you informed of up and coming events, webinars, and any new online learning tools as they are released.

Organisations that achieve accreditation of at least the Bronze Level of the Thrive at Work Commitment will receive the Thrive at Work Wellbeing Award. This accreditation sets an organisation apart as an employer of choice when it comes to mental health and wellbeing, whilst also enjoying the benefits of increased productivity.

To find out what support is available and how you can get started please contact Jenny Duggan, Thrive at work Lead for Coventry & Warwickshire at jenny.duggan@coventry.gov.uk.  Or check out the website www.wmca.org.uk/thriveatwork