Heads Up 3 February 2023

Securing the Best Start to Life

Early Years Lead Practitioner role recruitment - Spring Term 2023

Warwickshire Early Years Hub (WEYH) are now recruiting for Early Years Lead Practitioners (EYLPS).

This role is applicable for anyone in a 'non-teacher role' and deployments are carried out alongside your current role.

EYLPs offer specialist EY guidance to support and improve practice in other settings through deployments via the Warwickshire Early Years Hub.

The spring term application round opens on Monday 13th February and we will be accepting applications until Friday 3 March.

Please contact the WEYH Coordinator Michelle Hutton on Hutton.M2@welearn365.com for further details or to request an application form.

Find here the Role & Guidance document.

National Number Day

Today is National Number Day.

With fundraising for the NSPCC taking part across the country this may be a good opportunity for you to have a fun filled day of number activities and games too.

Further ideas for your Number Day and to support your teaching of Mathematics can also be found here:

Help-for-early-years-providers mathematics numbers

Nspcc. Fundraising-ideas/number-day

Amanda Spielman’s speech at the Big Conversation, 2023

Ofsted's Chief Inspector reflects on the last year in early education and explores the features of our early years research reviews.

Read here speech here.

Martyn's Law

In December 2022 the Government announced details of 'Martyn's Law' in tribute of Martyn Hett, who was killed alongside 21 others in the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attack.

Martyn’s Law will keep people safe, enhancing our national security and reducing the risk to the public from terrorism by the protection of public venues including education and early years settings. The legislation will ensure those responsible for certain locations are prepared, ready to respond and know what to do in the event of a terrorist attack.

Proportionality is a fundamental consideration for Martyn’s Law. Therefore, a tiered model will be established consisting of a ‘standard’ tier and an ‘enhanced’ tier. The Department for Education and the Home Office agree that the existing safety and safeguarding policies in place at most educational settings are sufficient to warrant special consideration. In recognition of these existing measures such sites, including early years settings, will be placed into the standard tier regardless of their occupancy.

The Department for Education is working with the Home Office on the development of legislation to clarify what this will mean for the early years sector. The Home Office factsheet on Martyn’s law gives more information. Expert advice, training and guidance is already available on the online protective security hub, ProtectUK.

If you have any questions of queries relating to the Protect Duty, or would like to be involved in a stakeholder engagement event as the legislation develops, please contact: dfe.protectandprepare@education.gov.uk.

Factsheet on Martyn's Law

National Storytelling Week 2023

It’s National story telling week this week and this is a great opportunity to engage your children in story telling activities which will help to develop their speech and literacy skills.

There are many great ideas and resources from the National Literacy Trust, which include ideas to support Early Years children to tell stories and ideas for how to make and use story sacks.

Click here for National-storytelling-week resources for Early Years

'Exploring Neurodiversity' conference - New date due to Teachers strikes

Due to the recently announced series of Teachers strikes (one of which falls on Wednesday 15th March) the WEYH EY conference on 'Exploring Neurodiversity' has been rescheduled. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. The event was unforeseen and out of our control, but we are pleased to announce that we have successfully managed to move the event to the new date of Thursday 23rd March in the afternoon, from 12.40pm to 16.30pm (arrival from 12.30). The venue is unchanged.

We are also delighted to announce that we have a new national EY specialist trainer joining us on the day. Ben Kingston-Hughes of Inspired Children will be providing the conference opener and will also be closing the event with his usual inspirational flare!

For further information please follow the link below or if you have any questions, please call the WEYH admin team on 07795367337

https://www.warwickshireearlyyears.co.uk/event-details/

Toddler Water Safety Week 2023

As part of the first Toddler Water Safety Week (6th - 10th February 2023) Canal and River trust has created some free activities and resources suitable for the under 5s, aimed at helping children stay near water. You can use these at home or in nursery.

See the guidance notes for info on how to use the activities.

Hold hands, take two steps back with Maddie Moate

Supporting Inclusion for SEND and Vulnerable Groups

Free training for practitioners working with children aged 0-5 years with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND)

Contact, the charity for families with disabled children, is hosting an online session on Wednesday 22 March 2023, 10am - 12.30pm, providing practical ideas for supporting families of disabled children in the Early Years.

The workshop aims to help professionals:

Increase understanding of disability, including hidden disability

Increase awareness of the effect of disability on the family

Enable more effective communication with parents

Enable a better start to a working relationship with parents of children with SEND.

Attendance is free as the course is being funded by the Department for Education as part of the Early Years SEND programme.

You can book your place via Eventbrite.

Celebrating Warwickshire’s Family of Schools

Updated guidance on AED’s in schools from the DfE

DfE has published an updated guidance on AED’s in schools. The purchasing arrangements and how to share usage widely within a community are the main areas of update. This is applicable to all education sites across the country.

Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) Guidance for schools (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Working together to improve school attendance

Reminders

1. School Attendance Network – Save the Date

The Warwickshire Attendance Service and the Stowe Valley Multi Academy Trust are jointly planning a school attendance network event. The purpose of the event will be to discuss the new attendance guidance and begin the development of an attendance support network.

The proposed date is 6^th March 2023, 12:30pm to 3:30pm

The initial meeting will be in person and is targeted at those responsible for school attendance, especially the school’s Attendance Champion. The venue is currently being arranged and further details will follow.

2. An invitation for schools to share daily attendance data and sign up for webinars

The DfE have advised local authorities that at some point this academic year they will start to contact schools who have not yet signed up to Wonde, as this will become a requirement.

78% of schools in England (77% of schools in Warwickshire) are now sharing daily attendance data with the DfE. Sharing data means you’ll be able to access daily attendance reports on view your education data.

3. To help you access and use the free reporting service, the DfE have a series of webinars for schools, trusts and local authorities starting this month. They will be holding monthly webinars, where you can learn about new features and get support with non-urgent technical issues.

4. Working together to improve school attendance is now the attendance guidance that should be used for schools, trusts, governing bodies and local authorities.

5. Improving attendance: good practice for schools and multi-academy trusts.

There are some really useful effective practice attendance webinars produced by the DfE in conjunction with schools, with good or improved attendance, sharing their good practice. It is highly recommended that your attendance lead/champion access this free resource.

6. Additional attendance resources are available on the Education Huband Teaching Blogs

Contact Us: If you wish to discuss any issues relating to school attendance, please feel free to contact the Warwickshire Attendance Service: was@warwickshire.gov.uk

Save the date - Spring Term 2023 Headteachers' Conference

Save the Date!

Spring Term 2023 Headteachers' Conference

Thursday 23^rd March 2023 (9.00am – 1.00pm)

Deli lunch bags for all delegates to eat in or take away

Venue

The University of Warwick

Rootes Building (close to the Arts Centre)

CV4 7AL

Parking will be free to delegates on the day

Agenda to follow shortly

Coventry and Central Warwickshire Teaching School Hub Courses

Children's Mental Health Week 2023

Coventry and Warwickshire Mind will be running several sessions during Children's Mental Health Week.

For more information please check their Evenbrite page.

They will have more of the parent/carer "how to talk to your child about mental health" sessions that can be booked here.