HEADS UP

WE1 Early Years

Outstanding result for Southam Primary Pre School LTD

Congratulations to all the staff at Southam Primary Pre School LTD who recently 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 manager leads with real passion to deliver the best possible outcomes for all the children who attend. The team members she manages are committed to the setting's vision. They successfully provide the best opportunities for children to develop and become confident, independent learners.

Children happily say goodbye to their parents and are excited to get involved in playing with their friends.

The opportunities for learning are inspiring and exciting for children. Practitioners use their extensive skills to build on what the children already know. They provide the opportunity for children to extend learning even further through deeper engagement in their play and increasing the level of maintained concentration.

Partnerships with parents are excellent. Parents highly commend the whole team. They view the settling-in process, including home visits to form relationships with the children prior to starting the setting, as invaluable to their children feeling confident. Parents enjoy sessions where they can attend and join in with their children's learning. 

The manager and practitioners continually observe and assess what children know. They use children's interests to engage them in their learning, reinforcing what they can do and providing new challenges to extend their learning. The manager monitors the quality of activities and learning experiences to ensure these reflect the children's interests and stages of development.

Practitioners are warm and caring and form exceptionally good relationships with the children. Children's superior independence skills are embedded in all aspects of their learning.

Children are extremely well behaved. They take great delight in helping adults with small responsibilities, such as gathering their friends' choices of snack, recording these using mathematical concepts and relaying them back to a practitioner. There is an outstanding respectful culture in this pre-school provision.

Staff are supported through highly effective supervision and training opportunities to improve the quality of their teaching to an exceptional level. This has an excellent positive impact on children's learning.

Children demonstrate a high level of engagement and enjoyment while listening to familiar stories. Practitioners give children the choice of stories through voting for their favourite. Each child has a small building brick, which they place on the book they would like a practitioner to read. They then use their superior mathematical skills to look at the groups of bricks and calculate which has the most votes, confidently using their mathematical vocabulary while doing so.

You can read the full report on Ofsted's website here. 

WE2 An empowering curriculum

£37 million fund for families with complex needs

Earlier this week the Government announced a £37 million fund for children with special educational needs and disabilities in England.

Families with children that have complex needs and disabilities will receive grants for vital equipment to make their lives easier while implementing social distancing measures during the Covid-19 pandemic, including computers, specialist equipment and educational toys. 

Below is some key information about the grant to share with your families who may be eligible:

  • There are a whole range of things that the grant will fund but typically they are looking for applications for disabled or critically ill children who are staying at home more than usual due to the pandemic. Funding will be allocated for equipment, goods, services such as household items, education equipment or specialist equipment.
  • Evidence of family income (being in receipt of tax credits, universal credits or other welfare benefits) is required with the application which should provide evidence that additional needs impact on the family and that conditions are long term (likely to last more than 12 months) or life limiting. View the full eligibility criteria here. 
  • Grants are usually worth £400-£500 per family but can vary on need.
    • Professionals can also make an application on behalf of a family.
    • Below is a really helpful film explaining the eligibility criteria

    Families in Warwickshire who require support in making an application should speak to their social worker or support worker, if they have one or they can contact the Family Information Service for support:

    Email: fis@warwickshire.gov.uk

    Phone: 01926 742274

    Competition and resources for Child Safety Week 1-7 June

    Child Safety Week 2020

    Warwickshire Fire & Rescue Service is running a competition for #ChildSafetyWeek which starts on 1 June. They would love as many children as possible to take part to highlight the importance of safety, especially now that many of us are spending lots more time at home with our loved ones.

    All of the information is on the poster below - create a rhyme about safety and there's a chance of winning your very own Blaze the Bear!

    The Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT), who run Child Safety Week every year, has put together a safety pack for parents highlighting some easy ways that they can help keep their children safe at home and hopefully avoid any trips to A&E. Please do share this with your families via your newsletters, social media and website if you can. 

    View the CAPT 'Keeping children safe during lock down and beyond' pack here.

    (Click the image below for a full size and downloadable version of the poster) 
    WFRS Nursery Rhyme competition 2020

    Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service launch Ellie the Fire Dog stories!

    Ellie the Fire Dog storiesFollowing the successful launch of the education hub earlier this month, Warwickshire County Council’s Fire and Rescue Service (WFRS) is now launching a bedtime story activity programme for young children, to help them learn about fire safety in a fun and engaging way.

    The books, read by members of WFRS, including the Chief Fire Officer, Kieran Amos, are from the Ellie the Fire Dog series. The stories have been produced specifically by West Midlands Fire Service to help children learn about key safety messages in an engaging way, including how to make a 999 call, the importance of having smoke alarms in your home and what the role of a firefighter entails.

    After each story, children can complete an activity set by the Fire Prevention Team to help with their understanding of the key messages within each book. This could be anything from drawing a picture to discussing the activity with their family and friends.

    The series of six stories begins with a 'Special Day for Ellie' and ends with ‘What an Awful Noise’.

    Watch all of the 'Ellie the Fire Dog' series and access the activities here.

    Fire Service also launches interactive education hub

    Warwickshire County Council’s Fire and Rescue Service has also launched an online education hub to enable them to deliver safety lessons to children while they are off school. Read more about the education hub and how to access this here.

    Coventry and Warwickshire Children’s Rights Service

    The Children's Rights Service, run by Barnardo's, is still available to access throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The service offers advocacy to children who are Looked After by Coventry or Warwickshire local authorities (LA) and also children who are Children in Need or homeless at 16-17 years old.

    The aim of the service is to ensure that the voice of the child is heard by those responsible for making decisions around their care. Barnardo's accept referrals over the phone from anyone who has the child's consent to do so, or directly from the young person themselves.

    More information is available on the Children's Rights Service here.

    Reading resources for mental health and wellbeing

    MHAW

    Warwickshire Libraries has been shining a light on Mental Health Awareness Week this week, with this year's campaign focus being on Kindness.

    To support Mental Health and Wellbeing, Warwickshire Libraries has dedicated Mental Health reading collections with expert endorsed Reading Well book lists from The Reading Agency which can help you look after your mental health particularly at this time.

    Many are available as eBook or eAudio download from the BorrowBox collection.

    WE3 Family of schools

    Education Challenge Board update from Peter Kent

    Peter KentOur recent meeting of the Challenge board highlighted once again how well school leaders in Warwickshire are dealing with all of the challenges presented by the pandemic. The way in which headteachers and leadership teams have responded to a rapidly changing set of events has been deeply impressive; putting a complex set of arrangements in place to cope with schools being closed for the majority of students, overseeing the setting of work, supporting colleagues and offering reassurance and advice to parents and governors. Never has the role of the headteacher as a community leader been more apparent.

    Our role has perhaps been made more challenging by the fact that wider society has not always fully grasped the role that schools have played in the current crisis. In my experience people outside the education network often assume that schools are entirely closed and so do not realise the huge amount of work that is going on, both to support those attending and to provide a virtual network for the entire school community.

    When the Challenge Board met this week, we discussed all of these issues and inevitable pressures that the national debate about the reopening of schools has created for headteachers and leadership teams. Whilst agreeing that there were no easy solutions, we agreed that it was important to look for ways in which headteachers could come together to explore the questions that we were grappling with and to exchange potential solutions. Whilst recognising that some questions cannot be answered either easily or immediately, we felt that it was very important to seek an opportunity to share ideas and approaches.

    Whilst we explore ways in which to do this, I wanted to pass on my admiration, as one colleague to another, for all that you are doing. The County is very fortunate to have such a committed and selfless group of school leaders who are doing so much for the children of Warwickshire.

    Dr Peter Kent

    Chair of the Education Challenge Board and Lawrence Sheriff School Headteacher

    Free modules for students aged 11-19 yrs from The Prince's Trust

    In response to Covid-19, The Prince’s Trust is giving access to free ready-to-go modules for 11-19 year olds who would like to continue to build their skills at home or in school.

    Modules have been converted to Word format so that they can either be completed on a computer or printed out and completed by hand, making it easy for these to be emailed out to learners who are at home. The Prince's Trust aims to provide access to the courses within one working day.

    There are eight modules, that have all now been adapted into Word format:

    1. Interpersonal Skills
    2. Managing Money
    3. Personal Project
    4. Planning for Personal Development
    5. Teamwork                                                     
    6. Preparing for a Healthy Lifestyle               
    7. Digital Skills (Including Online Safety)        
    8. Presentation Skills    

    If a student completes any two of these modules, they could be submitted for an accredited Level 1 Award in Personal Development and Employability from The Prince’s Trust.

    If your School, or youth service, has students looking to engage in this provision please email elaine.speed@princes-trust.org.uk

    Achieve Modules 1 Flyer

    Achieve Modules 2 Flyer

    WE4 Employability

    Advice to students applying for a student loan for 2020/21

    The Student Loans Company is still processing applications from students seeking financial support for higher education or university as normal however, as the online application system has been experiencing occasional pressure, they are asking students to apply at less busy times of the day.

    They have also stopped actively promoting the deadline for Academic Year 2020/21.

    Key messages for full-time students remain the same:

    • students are encouraged to apply as soon as possible to ensure their finances are in place for the new academic year
    • the later students apply for their finance, the more likely it is that they may not get all the funding they are entitled to when their first term starts
    • if new students are not yet sure of the course they will be doing, they should still apply for finance using the details of the course they are most likely to attend, and if this changes, they can come back and update their finance application
    • students should apply as early as they can and send any evidence that is requested to support their application as soon as possible
    • they'll need their National Insurance number and in-date UK passport details, as well as their bank account details


    Please continue to reflect these key messages in your advice and publicity to new Academic Year 2020/21 students.

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