Supporting Inclusion for SEND and Vulnerable Groups
Referrals open for the Caring Dads programme
Caring Dads is a groupwork programme which runs for 17 weeks, commissioned by Warwickshire County Council. The programme is designed to enable fathers to understand the impact of their abusive behaviour on their children, with the aim of children living safer lives.
We would like to make schools aware of the programme – if you have any dads in mind that you think would benefit and they have an allocated social worker, please speak to their social worker or email caringdads@warwickshire.gov.uk.
It is also important to be aware that to refer into the programme, fathers must have at least weekly contact with their children, be willing to participate in groupwork and have some, if limited, acknowledgement of their abusive behaviour.
The first group is due to run from the Bloxham Centre in Rugby, in May 2021.
For more information, visit the Caring Dads Website.
New parent carer forum in Warwickshire is seeking members
There is a new parent carer forum for the Warwickshire area called Warwickshire Parent Carer Voice and it is looking for people to get involved. The forum is a representative group led by parent carers for parent carers of children and young people who have special educational needs and disabilities (0-25). The group are looking forward to working with various agencies to help shape and improve local services.
Elaine Lambe from Warwickshire Parent Carer Voice said: “It is fantastic to have the opportunity to partner with the council to ensure that children and young people in Warwickshire meet their full potential and that families get the support that they need. We are looking forward to welcoming parent carers into our membership and ensuring that their voice is heard by decision makers to make services better for everyone.”
Ian Budd, Assistant Director at Warwickshire County Council said: “We are really excited to work with Warwickshire Parent Carer Voice. Warwickshire is committed to working with parents and carers to take forward our SEND & Inclusion Change Programme. The current challenges that we face in the system for our learners with special educational needs and disabilities cannot be overcome by working in isolation. By working together, we hope to improve outcomes for our children and young people, operate clear, fair and transparent processes and create an inclusive, sustainable system.”
Warwickshire Parent Carer Voice will be talking to local families over the upcoming months to help them decide on the local priorities and to be able to take their collective voice forward into discussion with service providers. If you would like to get involved with the forum or share your experiences please email warwickshireparentcarervoice@gmail.com or follow them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/warksparentcarervoice.
New SEND Panels coming in April 2021
Our SEND and Inclusion Change Programme is ongoing and as part of the SEND and Inclusion Strategy (Statutory Duty), the Dedicated School Grant (DSG) Recovery Plan identified that better decision making and refreshed guidance is required to ensure more children with EHC plans are supported with appropriate packages in mainstream settings.
Currently requests are made to WCC and then assessed via the Panel Process to confirm a plan. The SEND and Inclusion Change Programme has identified that there are currently nine panels in place, and these will be reduced to two panels to validate decisions on EHC plans. The objective is to ensure that rather than discussing casework at the Panel meeting, the required decision is already prepared for validation at the Panel. These new panels will help improve educational outcomes for learners in Warwickshire.
The following are the new panels frequencies and their purpose:-
- Statutory Panel – Weekly from 29th April. This panel will ensure a co-ordinated approach towards the request for an Education, Health and Care needs assessment for children and young people with SEND within Warwickshire. It will validate decisions on the drafting of an EHCP and the allocation of financial resources to support the child or young person’s final EHCP.
- High Needs Provision Panel – Fortnightly from 19th April - This panel will validate decisions as to whether requests for additional funding, and/or High-Cost Placements can be approved to support the child or young person’s needs.
Should you wish to ask any further questions, please email sendchange@warwickshire.gov.uk
Widget Symbol update
More Inclusive, More Relevant, More Symbols
For over 30 years Widgit Symbols have been used by Teachers, SEN Practitioners and Parents to support the learning, communication and independence of students of all ages. We take great pride in listening to our community and we are committed to providing you with a symbol set which is truly inclusive to all users.
To support self-expression and vocabulary comprehension for our users, we've been working on a major update to the Widgit Symbols to better represent the culture and technology of the world we live in.
Many of the changes in the update are small, but there are a lot of them, so we wanted to let you know they were coming.
Find out more here.
World Autism Awareness Week - 29th March 2021 to 4th April 2021
We are excited to celebrate World Autism Awareness week that takes place next week, 29th March 2021 to 4th April 2021.
Warwickshire County Council and the CCG’s have planned a week of fun quizzes, webinars and service and support promotions. Here are a few events you can participate in to raise awareness and improve understanding of Autism. More information to follow #Worldautismawarenessweek #understandingautism #autismacceptance #differencenotdeficit
Events:
Wednesday 31st March 2021
Autism in girls and autistic masking webinar for parents and carers at 10:00am – 11:00am
An introduction to the 3 C’s pathway (a relational approach to supporting autistic children) webinar for parent and carers and professionals– with a young people recorded interview 3.30pm – 4.30pm
Celebrating Warwickshire’s Family of Schools
Warwickshire County Council commissions new online mental health support for children and young people
Warwickshire County Council has commissioned Kooth, a free, safe and anonymous digital counselling and support service for children and young people.
Kooth is a safe and confidential way for young people to access emotional wellbeing and early intervention mental health support. The service will be available to all young people across Warwickshire aged 11-25 years from 29 March.
Kooth.com is an award winning and innovative online mental health and wellbeing support service, accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), which will support and complement the existing offer operated by Rise - a family of NHS-led services providing emotional wellbeing & mental health services for young people across the county.
Fully trained and qualified counsellors and emotional wellbeing practitioners are available from midday to 10pm, and from 6pm to 10pm at weekends, 365 days a year to provide an out-of-hours service for emotional support in an accessible way. Kooth.com also offers articles, forum and self-help 24/7.
For teachers and professionals who have day to day contact with young people, it is important that they know about kooth.com and understand what it can offer in order to signpost young people, particularly during Covid-19 and returning to school.
Our Kooth Engagement Lead will be available to present the Kooth model, provide guidance, support and signposting. They will be arranging a number of Eventbrite sessions to explain the service provided with a Q&A sessions.
For further information, e-posters or to arrange a meeting, please email warwickshire@kooth.com
Educaterers Managing Director, Terry Tredget, to retire in May
Terry Tredget, the Managing Director of Warwickshire-based school catering company, Educaterers, which provides meals to many pupils in our Warwickshire family of schools, will be taking early retirement at the end of May.
Terry will be retiring back home to be closer to his family on the Essex / Suffolk coast, having decided to retire during the Covid-19 pandemic which, Terry says, has put several things into perspective. As such, Terry and his wife have decided the time is right for them both to retire.
Educaterers serve up over 120,000 nutritious tasty meals a week in over 200 schools, not only in Warwickshire, but also in Coventry, Birmingham, Leicestershire, and Oxfordshire.
The past 12 months have been challenging for all those involved in education service provision and, throughout the pandemic lockdowns, dedicated Educaterers staff continued to serve up meals to those children that attended school and to the staff supporting and caring for them.
Terry has written to all headteachers and business managers who are customers of Educaterers to inform them of this retirement and says: “I could not have made this decision without the quality team I have behind me, who have decades of combined experience in the school catering industry.
“They have my total confidence in their ability and dedication to continue to serve the needs of your schools and Academy Trusts.
“In fact, we are in the process of strengthening this relationship and support with the creation of three new Regional Contract Manager posts in our operational team.”
Terry took to helm at Educaterers in 2017, when the former Warwickshire County Caterers became Warwickshire County Council’s first Local Authority Traded Company (LATC).
Since then, the company has expanded to win and deliver more school catering contracts, both within the county and beyond Warwickshire’s borders.
In 2019, Educaterers was awarded the title of ‘Business of the Year’ by the Lead Association for Catering in Education (LACA), which recognises catering teams or organisations that have made an outstanding contribution to catering for schools in their local area and who continue to make a real difference to education catering.
Last year, the Educaterers catering team from Knightlow Primary School in Stretton-on-Dunsmore won the ‘Primary School Catering Team’ title in the LACA Awards for Excellence 2020, in recognition of their achievements in going ‘above and beyond’ to deliver school meals and more during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Under Terry’s leadership, staff development has been a big focus, with three Educaterers centres of excellence established at three individual schools in Warwickshire, in a secondary, junior and infant school, to further improve the cookery skills of Educaterers’ catering teams.
Over 75% of what Educaterers put on school dinner plates is homemade and the centres of excellence have enabled Educaterers to train both new and existing employees, as well as test new ideas in service and menu development.
In his message to headteachers and school business managers, Terry says: “I want to personally thank you for the trust that you have put in me and Educaterers, for which you have my sincere gratitude, and I look forward to the company continuing to enjoy a positive relationship with your schools and Academy Trusts.”
In December, the Educaterers Board commenced the search for Terry’s replacement and more news about that with be shared shortly – watch this space.
Terry’s replacement has many years of experience in the catering industry and Educaterers customers will be in good hands.
If you are an Educaterers customer and have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your Contract Manager or email contactus@educaterers.co.uk.
Director of Public Health Annual Report
On behalf of Dr Shade Agboola, Director of Public Health:
As Warwickshire’s new Director of Public Health, I am delighted you are reading my first annual report. The core purpose of a Director of Public Health is independent advocacy for the health of the population and leadership for its improvement and protection. As part of my role I have a statutory duty to produce an annual report on the health and wellbeing of the population. I am excited to share with you my first Director of Public Health Annual Report entitled ‘COVID-19: Impact in Warwickshire: an exceptional year’ on the one-year anniversary since the first national lockdown.
This year’s report uses a case study approach to share residents' experiences of testing positive with COVID-19 and living through lockdown. This report is a vital tool to raise awareness of the impact of the pandemic in our communities, highlighting what we must put in place to support everyone to recover from the pandemic, improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities. Read the full report at: warwickshire.gov.uk/publichealthannualreport
This year’s report uses a case study approach to share residents' experiences of testing positive with COVID-19 and living through lockdown. The report is a vital tool to raise awareness of the impact of the pandemic in our communities, highlighting what we must put in place to support everyone to recover from the pandemic, improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities.
The current pandemic has affected everybody’s health and wellbeing. It has shone a light on the health inequalities which already existed in Warwickshire - for example, life expectancy is 8.2 years lower for men and 5.7 years lower for women in the most deprived areas of Warwickshire than in the least deprived areas.
To accompany the report an online gallery sharing residents ‘COVID-19 Stories; and an online dashboard ‘Monitoring Health Inequalities’ has been produced to monitor the impact of COVID-19 on health inequalities has been produced:
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COVID-19 Stories is an online gallery that shares additional stories from Warwickshire residents about their experiences through the pandemic. Photographs from across the county have been captured to illustrate the case studies. To view the gallery visit https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/covid19stories
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Monitoring Health Inequalities is an online dashboard which considers health data over time at various geographies. The data relates to a range of themes covered in the report, including the wider determinants of health and inequalities and will continue to be added to as more data is made available. To view the dashboard visit www.warwickshire.gov.uk/publichealthannualreport
Reflecting on the key challenges highlighted in the report, I have made several recommendations to improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities in Warwickshire which require a concerted joint effort across the health and care system if they are to be achieved.
School Entry Health Needs Assessment - Your Child's Health
Every year the School Health and Wellbeing Service offers health needs assessments (HNA) to reception, year 6 and year 9 students. The service is currently preparing to send out the school entry HNA to the parents of those children starting school in September 2021.
In order to prepare parents/carers to complete the questionnaire and introduce them to the service, the service has developed a helpful video to describe the service offer and what will happen with the results of the HNAs.
The video can be accessed here and is a useful guide to the service for families and professionals in schools.
Children and young people invited to help shape 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.
We have launched a survey to capture the views and opinions of young people as part of the Child Friendly Warwickshire programme.
As you may have read last week, Child Friendly Warwickshire aims to work with children and young people as well as businesses, community groups and council services. The plan is designed to enrich the county as a place that is safe, stable and full of opportunity for young people with access to good health, education and other services.
All views shared in the survey will help understanding of what the initiative could look and feel like and will inform our work with the wider community to deliver it.
Child Friendly Warwickshire will be formally launched in the coming months and will be an open invitation to organisations of all kinds to work with the county council to ensure Warwickshire is a safe place full of great opportunities for children.
The survey is anonymous and should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete. It has been designed to be simple and interactive, however younger children may require the support of an adult. It will close on Wednesday 31 March at 5pm.
For more information please email childfriendly@warwickshire.gov.uk
Please share our survey link: https://warwickshire.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cU68aDJQvRRl4xv
Think Active: Funding Opportunity
Think Active have been successful in their application to Sport England in the Opening School Facilities Fund and now invite schools to apply.
This fund aims to support young people to be active by allowing schools to operate safely, as we transition to recovery and reinventing what sport and activity provision looks like in the future. By helping schools to either re-open or open their sports facilities, we are supporting clubs and groups, some of which have not been able to do anything for almost 12 months, to access local facilities. This will facilitate much needed activities for young people during evenings and weekends.
Funding will be prioritised to:
- Support schools with a high percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals.
- The least active
- Provide opportunities for pupils with SEND to take part in activities.
- Schools based within Think Active's targeted areas: North Warwickshire, Nuneaton & Bedworth, North Solihull and Coventry.
However, we do welcome applications from schools outside of our targeted areas as we understand there are pockets of need across Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire.
Please click on this link for more information and to complete the online application form.
The deadline for this application Friday 30 April 2021.
If you require further information please contact Hayley.noel@coventry.gov.uk
FULLY FUNDED - Expert Leadership Coaching Webinar
As part of our Mental Health and Wellbeing Support for Headteachers we are encouraging heads to explore the benefits of coaching. Many of you have engaged in the webinars that we have commissioned Gateway Alliance to provide across this year and the final webinar, led by an expert leadership coach, is coming up after Easter on Tuesday 20th April, 10:00-11:00am.
SESSION TITLE: Using Perspectives in Coaching to Encourage a Different Mindset led by Julie Rees
This webinar is for Headteachers and is FREE to Warwickshire schools. For more information and to book a place click here.
To browse Gateway’s full CPD programme for 2020-21 please visit: www.gatewayalliance.co.uk/finder/. If you have any questions or queries please contact Gateway Alliance on 02476 347697 or email: info@gatewayalliance.co.uk
Senior Leaders’ Webinar – Developing a Thinking School – What is a dynamic learning community? led by Dr Kulvarn Atwal
The 7th Senior Leaders’ Webinar, led by the Gateway Alliance, is coming up after Easter. These webinars form part of Gateway Alliance’s Senior Leaders’ Network - CPD Programme and the Local Authority have funded all Warwickshire schools’ to access any 3 webinars in this series. Many senior leaders have engaged in the webinars over the year so far and the feedback has been fantastic.
The next webinar is coming up on Monday 26th April (10:00-11:00am), is entitled ‘Developing a Thinking School – What is a dynamic learning community?’ and is being led by Dr Kulvarn Atwal – Executive Headteacher of two large primary schools in the London Borough of Redbridge and author of ‘The Thinking School: Developing a Dynamic Learning Community’.
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO BOOK A PLACE CLICK HERE.
To take advantage of the FREE sessions, funded by the Local Authority, you will need to use voucher code: SLweb3! when making your booking. If you already subscribe to Gateway programmes please remember to log-in before booking your place.
To browse Gateway’s full CPD programme for 2020-21 please visit: www.gatewayalliance.co.uk/finder/. If you have any questions or queries please contact Gateway Alliance on 02476 347697 or email: info@gatewayalliance.co.uk
FREE Road Safety Virtual Assembly – Let's Talk … Cycling!
Warwickshire Road Safety Education Team and Warwickshire Police are helping to spread cycle safety messages to primary aged pupils as part of the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) ‘2-Wheels' campaign.
Cycling is a great way for pupils to travel actively to school and we know many of you will already be encouraging cycling at your school. We are delighted to be able to offer all Warwickshire primary schools a brand-new digital assembly called 'Let's Talk...Cycling'. This special assembly, created in collaboration with Nuneaton Safer Neighbourhood Team from Warwickshire Police, focuses on key age-appropriate messages and explains why cycling is good for us, how to cycle safely and most importantly, why we should wear a helmet.
Warwickshire Road Safety Education Team are also working in partnership with local policing teams to help make your bikes secure and are offering schools the opportunity to receive free bike markings for children who have bikes. Bikes will be marked (with a sticker) and registered on a national database. There are limited number of markings and so those schools taking part in the Safe and Active Travel Award Programme will be offered the markings first. However, if your school would like to sign up for the Safe and Active Travel Award then please do get in touch for more information.
If you would like to access this digital assembly for your school or are interested in the Safe and Active Travel Programme and bike markings, please contact: roadsafetyeducation@warwickshire.gov.uk