The Education Sub-Committee of the Warwickshire Safeguarding Children's Board (WSCB) met earlier this week and agreed the importance of looking more closely in future at the high risk areas of children missing from education, elective home education and children attending school with reduced timetables (an approach normally deployed to help re-engage the child with teaching and learning). A number of recent local Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections, with a focus on SEND, have highlighted education systems having significant shortcomings in the oversight and failure to follow formal due process for these areas of focus. In the main, Warwickshire has a positive story to tell with these themes, but we do collectively have a number of areas for development, in support of our improvement journey, which I'll be sharing in further detail in the coming weeks.

I'm sure that most colleagues will be aware that Warwickshire has in place a High Needs Funding Panel, introduced in recent years following changes in SEND legislation and funding arrangements. The panel meets to consider requests to the LA for additional funding for pupils with complex needs. An independent review of this panel was commissioned at the end of 2018, and one of the meetings observed as part of this process. The report presents an extremely positive picture, judging the panel to be 'highly effective' and members 'extremely knowledgeable'. It is clear there are some areas for improvement but the key message is one of commitment to achieving the best outcomes for children, and reassurance to parents and families of a robust and well-managed system for these very complex cases.

Another area of focus for our vulnerable learners is uptake of Free School Meals (FSM). In this bulletin you can read a review of FSM and a summary of the current data and work undertaken in Warwickshire to improve take up, as well as the arising issues. The report finds that the introduction of the universal entitlement to FSM in 2014 has led to the loss of £2.1 million in Pupil Premium funding.

I hope that some of you will already have responded to the Ofsted consultation on the new inspection framework.

This bulletin also includes some other national news in the press this week that we thought might be of interest to you; the new teacher recruitment tool, to help schools achieve value for money and access quality assured supply agencies who complete thorough background and safeguarding checks. Last week we also saw the launch of the government's campaign, 'Fire it up', to promote the benefit of apprenticeships to all - young people, parents and employers.

Just a quick reminder to use our 'Useful links' section on the right hand side of this page to access key services and documents quickly. We've added a link here to our Sufficiency Strategy (2018-2023), which sits alongside the Education Strategy, and sets out how we will work with Warwickshire's Family of Schools and partner agencies to deliver high quality, accessible school and early years places for all learners.

We also have a new dedicated email account for receiving your contributions to Heads Up, and for any related queries, so please do use this for contacting us in future: headsup@warwickshire.gov.uk

Best wishes,

Paul Senior
Interim Assistant Director Education Services