Busy Bees in Warwick receive Outstanding Ofsted report

Congratulations to the staff at Busy Bees in Warwick who had their Ofsted Early Years inspection in January 2019. They received ‘Outstanding’ judgements across all of the four inspection areas - leadership and management; quality of teaching, learning and assessment; personal development, behaviour and welfare; and outcomes for children.

Ofsted stated: ‘The nursery environment provides children with an inspiring range of resources, indoors and outside. Staff use their expert knowledge to plan exciting and interesting activities that continually develop children's interests and next steps in learning. This helps promote excellent outcomes for children. Inspirational leadership and highly effective systems for the supervision of staff performance ensure consistently high standards of teaching practice throughout the nursery.’

Well done to everyone at Busy Bees for all your hard work. 

Letter from National Policing lead for hate crime following New Zealand terror attack

We have been asked to share the attached letter from ACC Mark Hamilton (National Policing Lead for hate crime and the National Police Chiefs’ Council representative) that was sent to members of the Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group following the attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand last week.

ACC Mark Hamilton has asked that this be shared as widely as possibly with Muslim communities so please do circulate through your contacts. To make this as easy as possible to share, there is a PDF version as well as a PNG version (in two parts) which can be shared more easily on Twitter, Whatsapp etc.

Sharing messages like this offers reassurance on Government action in the light of the events in Christchurch. 

Letter from ACC Mark Hamilton (pdf version)

Letter from ACC Mark Hamilton Part 1 (png)

Letter from ACC Mark Hamilton Part 2 (png)

Alternative Provision free school given green light to competition stage

Warwickshire County Council (WCC) and the family of Warwickshire schools received a very welcome boost on 11 March 2019, when the Secretary of State gave the green light to proceed to the next stage of the process for an alternative provision free school bid. The next stage involves engaging with trusts in an open competition stage. 

The pupils who will attend the alternative provision school will be some of the most vulnerable young people in Warwickshire, including those who are suffering ill-health, are teenage parents, have been severely bullied or have been excluded.

The school will offer the following for 11-16 year olds:

1. Short-stay provision (maximum 6 to 12 week placements) for permanently excluded students or hard to place students who need to be supported whilst they await a school place.

2. Part-time provision offering a hybrid between mainstream and alternative/vocational options for those students who cannot cope in mainstream full-time but can access the core.

3. Full-time provision for those students who do not meet the assessment criteria to access an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) but who require a smaller setting to get their education. They will have access to GCSE and vocational qualifications, employability skills, personal development, and therapeutic programmes that address their behaviour and Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs.

The free school will sit alongside existing provision in Warwickshire, adding to the menu available and increasing the offer to our most vulnerable young people.

The details of the agreed specification for the school is available here.

You can find the proposals for all new schools in Warwickshire, including the alternative provision free school, here.

Widening support for home-educating families

We were delighted to welcome back home-educating families from across Warwickshire for our second Home Education forum last week. 

We launched the forum with a session on child development and emotion coaching, followed by guest speakers from our local colleges to talk about the dedicated programmes and support they have on offer for home educated children. The SEND Assessment and Review Service spoke about support available to families of children with SEN (Special Educational Needs).

All speakers were warmly received and feedback has been really positive. Comments from the attendees included 'it was exciting to hear about what is available from colleges for home educated children' and the forums have been 'very helpful'. 

We are working to widen the scope of additional activities and opportunities that could be made available to home educating families. We have now launched a Home Education Facebook page and will be moving the forum around the county to encourage more families to connect with us. 

Currently, there are almost 500 children across Warwickshire who are educated at home.

For further information please contact Annette Firman: annettefirman@warwickshire.gov.uk

More information about home education for parents and carers is available on our webpage: www.warwickshire.gov.uk/homeeducation

Ofsted: Stronger partnerships needed to tackle knife crime

Ofsted published new research last week looking at knife crime and how education settings in London protect children from this kind of violence. 

The report, Knife Crime: Safeguarding children and young people in education, recognises that although schools have a valuable role to play in tackling this issue, they do not have the ability to do this alone, with the suggestion that strong multi-agency partnerships are needed to counter the complex problems behind the rise of knife crime.

Research was carried out in 29 schools, colleges and pupil referral units (PRUs) in London and found inconsistencies with the way the issue was dealt with across the area. 

Recommendations include more guidance for schools on how to deal with knives and teaching about the risks, and the need for greater clarity around managed moves.

You can read the press release and a summary of the report here.

Overview & Scrutiny Committee Children & Young People meeting on Tuesday 12th March

Samren Reddy (a Member of Youth Parliament), George Towl (Deputy Member of Youth Parliament), Charity Miller (Children in Care Council) and Umar Teerab (Care Leavers Forum) delivered a presentation on the engagement and participation of children and young people to elected members of the Children & Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday 12 March.

Their presentation was warmly received by members of the committee. It focused on the contribution of children and young people and how this aligns with the Participation and Engagement Strategy 2019 - 2023

The young people updated the committee on children and young people’s priorities which fall under five key outcomes within the Participation and Engagement Strategy. These are as follows:

• Keeping healthy
• Be safe
• Have fun and do well
• Take part
• Think about the future

In respect to schools and colleges children and young people are primarily concerned about bullying, work experiences opportunities careers advice and learning important life skills.

The four youth groups supported by Warwickshire County Council employees Shinderpaul Bhangal and Cheryl Jones include:

• Members of Youth Parliament
• Warwickshire Youth Council (WYC)
• Children in Care Council (CICC)
• Care Leavers Forum (CLF)

For more information contact shinderpaulbhangal@warwickshire.gov.uk

Relationships and health education: new requirements from 2020

Draft statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education has now been published following a 12-week consultation.

From September 2020, primary schools (including all-through and middle schools) will need to provide:

• Relationships education
• Health education

The changes will also affect secondary schools, detailing more on topics like staying safe online and sexual relationships and sexual health. 

The government wants pupils to leave school prepared, in the widest sense, for adult life. The content of the regulations and guidance should reflect an effective balance between ensuring that children are taught the knowledge they require to thrive in a modern world, and ensuring that schools have flexibility to design and plan subject content within the wider curriculum in subjects such as Citizenship, Science, PE and Computing to meet the needs of their pupils.

To summarise, at primary level, pupils should learn about subjects including families, friendships and online relationships. At secondary level, topics will be built on from primary and include sexual relationships and sexual health.

Some of the proposals also include lessons on sexting, female genital mutilation (FGM) and mental health. 

Sharing outstanding practice In Philosophy and Ethics

Education Challenge Board Update from Peter Kent

In my view our Challenge Board on 11 March was a particularly effective meeting. As I continue to emphasise, the meetings are not a discussion of individual schools, but rather an overview of the strategies being put in place to provide support for schools across the county. Far from being a forum for criticism, the most common phrase I heard during Monday’s meeting was ‘What can we do to help?’

Paul Senior gave us an excellent presentation on the impact of the education strategy across Warwickshire. There was a lot to celebrate - exclusions halved, gaps being closed and real progress being made with a series of long-standing issues. It was very impressive to hear about the Warwickshire schools that had been singled out for praise by Amanda Spielman in her recent annual report. I think we should all be grateful to Paul for the way in which he has maintained the positive momentum of the strategy during his time in Warwickshire.

However, Paul also gave us some very direct challenges, focusing particularly upon the need to work together to provide solutions within Warwickshire that removed the need for students to have to travel outside the county.

Paul left us with three questions that seemed strong measures to apply to our continuing work on the education system across Warwickshire:

• How are we doing?
• How do we know?
• How do we compare with similar areas?

As part of all this, the board looked in detail at the emerging strategy for Nuneaton that seeks to bring together education and a whole range of other agencies to produce a joined up solution for the area. It was very helpful to have Paul with us and to be able to pick his brains about approaches that had succeeded in other authorities with similar challenges. I was particularly struck by the willingness of schools across the county to work together in order to make the strategy work and the number of colleagues who volunteered to be part of the task group.

Peter Kent

Chair of the Education Challenge Board and Lawrence Sheriff School, headteacher

Application window re-opened for Fair Workload Charter

Warwickshire schools were invited last term to participate in the Fair Workload Charter Survey which recognises the positive work undertaken in managing teacher workload.

We are pleased to let you know that the window for applying for the Fair Workload Charter has now re-opened and schools interested in participating are invited to email at the earliest opportunity: fairworkloadcharter@warwickshire.gov.uk. Schools registering their interest will then receive a link to the online survey to share with teachers, who should complete this by Friday 12 April 2019.

We are delighted to let you know that five schools were successful in being awarded the charter in the last round of applications:

• Abbey C of E Infant School
• Abbots Farm Junior School
• Clapham Terrace Community Primary School
• Claverdon Primary School
• Michael Drayton Junior School

The charter status will last for 24 months from the date awarded.

This initiative was developed by a working party in partnership with headteachers, WCC and the teacher trade unions to allow schools to enable their teaching staff to comment on the following workload areas:

• general working conditions
• planning and marking expectations
• data collection and communications
• school policies and access to training

Based on the results of the above survey, schools reaching a 90% threshold will be awarded the Fair Workload Charter status. This is a kite mark that can be used in recruitment materials and general communication and promotion of the school. Given the national focus on the effects the management of workload is having on schools and staff sickness absence and turnover, this could be a very powerful recruitment and retention tool for your school or academy trust to use to tackle these challenging issues.

Schools not successful in the spring term will be able to try again in autumn 2019.  There will be a three week window for this process beginning straight after October half term. 

There is a nominal subscription cost to cover administration and the materials of £50 per school.  You will receive detailed feedback after submitting your survey results in order to allow you to action plan accordingly to address those areas which may have prevented you receiving the award upon first attempt.

More information is available (including the survey questions used) in the Fair Workload Charter frequently asked questions.

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