WE1 Early Years
95% of Early Years Providers in Warwickshire are ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’
Last week Ofsted released their latest set of data on Early Years inspections up to December 2018. This includes inspections of private, voluntary and independent nurseries, preschools, out of school provision and childminders.
Ofsted publish this data three times a year - inspections up to the end of March are published in June each year, inspections up to the end of August are published in November each year and inspections up to the end of December are published in March of the following year.
This summary has been compiled from Ofsted’s data release from 26 March 2019 and shows that Warwickshire Early Years figures are maintaining from the figures published for August 2018.
As of 31 December 2018, in Warwickshire:
- 17% of Early Years settings are judged ‘Outstanding’ (a decrease of 1% from August 2018)
- 78% of settings judged ‘Good’ (an increase of 1% from August 2018),
- 3% of settings judged ‘Requires Improvement’ (a decrease of 1% from August 2018)
- 1% of settings judged ‘Inadequate’ (remaining the same as August 2018).
Although this is below the national figure for ‘Outstanding’ (20%), it is above the national figure for ‘Good’ (76%), below the national figure for ‘Requires Improvement’ (4%) and in line with the national figure for ‘Inadequate’ (1%).
Warwickshire also has six maintained nursery schools, with 67% of these judged as ‘Outstanding’ and 33% judged as ‘Good’.
Launch of new early years aspiration networks
The Warwickshire Teaching School Alliance (WTSA) is working in partnership with Warwickshire County Council to support quality improvement, workforce development and to grow early years networking opportunities.
Overwhelming evidence from research indicates that high quality early learning is essential in giving children the concrete start they need to achieve better outcomes in school and beyond. Children who experience high quality provision will develop better social, emotional and cognitive abilities.
With this in mind, over the next 12 months WTSA is establishing 14 geographically based Early Years Aspiration Networks, linked to school consortia areas.
They are open to all early years practitioners working with children aged birth to five in schools and settings and are free to attend.
The networks will meet five or six times each year with an agenda based on developing teaching, local needs, access to support and advice, free training and networking.
The summer term roll out includes:
Consortium 1: Nuneaton East & Stockingford: led by Sharon Kindred, Headteacher at Stockingford Early Years Centre
Consortium 2: Bedworth: led by Jane Harris, Assistant Headteacher & EYFS Lead; Wheelwright Lane Primary School
Consortium 8A: Leamington North: led by Rachel Cooper, EYFS Lead, St Paul's Primary School
Consortium 9: Warwick & Southam: led by Cathy Bignold, Headteacher at Warwick Maintained Nursery School
Consortium 11: Rugby Town: led by Catherine Crisp, Headteacher at Hillmorton Primary School
If you are located in these areas please look out for an email from Amanda King, Strategic Lead for Early Years inviting you to a launch event.
WE2 An empowering curriculum
Educational Psychology Services' Critical Incident Support
Since 2017, Warwickshire’s Educational Psychology Service (EPS) has provided a Critical Incident (CI) service to schools, colleges and other settings, offering support for the emotional wellbeing of an educational community when something unexpected occurs, such as the death of a peer, staff member or parent/carer, a criminal act, violent attack, or large scale incident, such as a fire etc.
Thankfully such incidents are relatively rare but the EPS continues to respond to requests several times each year; sometimes a telephone call or email advice and links to resources is all that is needed but at other times we can come into school and talk to staff. While it is recognised that the best people to support children and young people immediately after experiencing grief or trauma are the adults that they know and trust, we offer support, including follow-up where necessary, to ensure that those adults feel confident in supporting the child or young person in your setting.
As the current service level agreements are coming to the end of their two year cycle, schools, colleges and other settings now have the opportunity to purchase Critical Incident Insurance through a service level agreement (SLA) with the EPS. In order to ensure a rapid and timely response we encourage settings to take out the Critical Incident insurance; we request a payment which is based on 50 pence per pupil per year, up to a maximum cost for any setting of £250 per year. To reduce administration time and costs, the cover runs for two years.
The Educational Psychology Service does not want to profiteer from running CI support but it does require funding to ensure that Educational Psychologists can be made available to respond quickly. It has been decided that at the end of the next two year period (2019 - 2021) any unspent Critical Incident subscription will be used to deliver training, open to those schools who subscribed (whether they needed support during that period or not).
Please contact Janet Mander, Office Manager for EPS, 01926 742921 or email janetmander@warwickshire.gov.uk in order to subscribe.
Half day free event for Heads and SENCos: Jonathan Jones HMI
***LAST CHANCE TO BOOK***
Jonathan Jones HMI will be coming to Warwickshire on Monday 8 April to talk about 'Whole School SEND: the strategic role of the SENCo', referring to lessons learned from both school and local area SEND inspections. The half-day event, free to all Warwickshire schools, will also include the launch of the Local Authority's new Inclusion Quality Mark.
The event starts at 1.30pm and will be held at Dunchurch Park Hotel & Conference Centre, Rugby Road, Dunchurch, Rugby, Warwickshire, CV22 6QW.
Jonathan Jones is one of Her Majesty's Inspectors and Ofsted's specialist adviser for education and special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Prior to working for Ofsted he gained extensive senior leadership experience across a number of educational phases and has had experience outside of education. Jonathan inspects the full range of provisions. He regularly leads the local area SEND inspections and the survey evaluations of multi-academy trusts.
Jonathan is a member of the quality assurance team and investigates complaints against Ofsted. He is also a remit trainer. Jonathan has worked and led on a number of national initiatives and has particular expertise in curriculum, SEND, multi academy trusts and governance.
Click here to book your place. For any queries please email melindatwells@warwickshire.gov.uk
Warwickshire Music - supporting a broad and balanced curriculum
Warwickshire Music provides instrumental, vocal and curriculum music from across a full range of educational settings, from primary to secondary, as well as through four area music centres located across Warwickshire.
Warwickshire Music and other hub partners work in partnership with a shared vision:
"To ensure children in Warwickshire have the very best opportunities to learn to play an instrument, learn to sing, play together in ensembles and progress to the next level of excellence.”
For more information about available opportunities please see the attached flyers:
Warwickshire Music KS1 and KS2 offer
Warwickshire Music KS3 offer
News from School Health Service
National CSE Awareness Day
During March the School Health and Wellbeing Service has been busy raising awareness around Childhood Sexual Exploitation. Nationally, there was an awareness raising day on 18 March. One of the aims of the day was to highlight the issues surrounding CSE; encouraging everyone to think, spot and speak out against abuse. We have been present in many secondary schools across the county and have engaged with lots of young people on this important subject.
Programmes of support for schools
Now that the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) for 2019 is complete we are looking to deliver as many Public Health interventions as we can within schools.
We are in the process of phoning every school to offer programmes of support. This support could be in the form of a classroom lesson, assembly or interactive playground activities during break times. We look forward to booking a date with you soon.
We are also keen to attend as many school events as we can. So, if you are holding a parent's evening, new parent's evening, health week or sports day, then please feel free to invite us along and we will try hard to attend.
Upcoming event
In May we will be promoting National Smile month (13 May to 13 June), the largest and longest running campaign promoting good oral health.
Our contact details / Text Messaging Service
Warwickshire School Health and Wellbeing Service are keen for our services to be accessible and for service users to be able to contact us in a variety of different ways. We therefore operate a text messaging service where individuals can directly message the service with questions or concerns.
The text messaging service operates across two different numbers. One number is for young people between the ages of 11 – 19 yrs and is called ChatHealth. The other number is for parents/carers and the service is called Parentline.
Both ChatHealth and Parentline are well used with both young people and parents/carers taking the opportunity to receive health advice on a range of issues from a qualified nurse.
The text messaging service is staffed Monday to Friday and is open from 9am to 5pm.
Please feel free to promote both ChatHealth and Parentline across your school communities.
- ChatHealth – Young People can contact us directly using our confidential text messaging number – 07507331525
- ChatHealth Parentline – Parents can contact us directly using our confidential text messaging number – 07520619376
Schools wishing to contact the School Health Service can use the central number 03300 245204, selecting option 1,2 or 3 depending
on where your school is located.
Free Trees for Schools
There is growing evidence to suggest that simple exposure to the natural environment can improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people, and with the Woodland Trust giving away trees for free, you could help to enhance pupils' time at school with time spent in greener, leafier spaces.
Schools can apply for packs of 30, 105 or 420 saplings. The website also features a host of online resources to plan, plant and care for your tree pack with activities linked to the curriculum. Visit The Woodland Trust website for more information and to apply.
Please note: Some primary schools are also eligible for support with planting and activities with children. For further information please see the 'Free Trees for Schools' leaflet attached.
Training to support maths and inference
Training available from the Specialist Teaching Service
Maths Learning Difficulties – Exploring successful strategies to support
21 May 2019, 1pm to 4pm, Pound Lane, Leamington, CV32 7RT
Course description: This training explores the different factors that can affect a child’s maths development and outlines theory and research. There will be opportunities to look at the importance of concrete apparatus and visual approaches to support the learner’s understanding of mathematical concepts. This will be an opportunity to refresh your knowledge of the use of Numicon and other resources.
Aimed at: TAs, LSA, Teachers and SENCos who wish to explore maths difficulties further in the Primary Phase.
Cost: £75
Click here for more information.
Inference Training
21 May 2019, 9.30am to 4pm at Pound Lane, Leamington, CV32 7RT
Course description: Inference training is a group intervention for pupils in KS2 and KS3 who decode adequately but fail to get full meaning and enjoyment from their reading. Evidence suggests one in ten pupils who decode satisfactorily, fail to get full meaning and enjoyment from reading.
Cost: £265
Click here for more information.
WE3 Family of schools
New online services launched for in-year admissions and free school meals
We are pleased to announce that the In-Year Admissions and Free School Meal online application services are now live.
Both areas officially launched their new online application services on 27 March.
This will enable information to be shared more easily between Warwickshire County Council and schools, with in-year applications and free school meal information being stored all in one place in the School Access Module (SAM), along with existing transfer applications.
Parents and carers will benefit from being able to apply for school places (with the exception of schools that do their own in-year applications), 11+ tests, two year old funding and free school meals all in one place, with the Parent Portal.
Guidance videos
Two video guides have been put together to help with navigating the new application process for in-year admissions.
Schools' guidance video: School Access Module (SAM) process
Parent/carer guidance: Online application process
Links to online application services
For Parent/Carers
Application for In-Year Admission
Application for Free School Meals
For Schools
School Access Module (login details required)
If schools require further information or guidance they can contact admissions@warwickshire.gov.uk or freemeals@warwickshire.gov.uk
Secondary school induction and term dates for 2020/21
School term and holiday dates
Thank you to those who responded to our consultation on the school term and holiday dates for 2020/21. These have now been approved and are available online here: https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/schoolholidaydates
Secondary school induction dates
In response to feedback, the secondary school induction date has been set for Wednesday 7 July 2021. Please note this is a change from the date originally proposed in the consultation of 24 June 2021.
Want to get involved in system leadership?
Are you a Bursar, School Business Manager or a Finance Officer?
Have you held this responsibility for two years or more?
Are you ready to step up to the next level of leadership?
If you answered yes to these questions, then you might want to come along to our information session on 11 April to find out more.
We are looking for people for an exciting new role, as we are offering School Business Managers (SBM) an opportunity to support colleagues in other schools and to share their expertise through gaining Specialist Leader in Education (SLE) designation.
This new role is aimed at developing the capacity and capability of colleagues new to the role of SBM, or those needing additional support, to give them the skills to improve practice and lead teams in their own schools.
Schools delivering the support will receive financial remuneration.
Are you interested?
If you would like the opportunity to discuss this leadership role in further detail then please come along to aninformation session at Kenilworth School, Thursday 11 April from 1.30pm - 3.30pm. Please register your attendance.
We look forward to seeing you there!
For any queries please email sarahtaylor@warwickshire.gov.uk
Still time to benefit - The Key Services for Schools
Don't miss out!
A reminder to schools that there is still an opportunity to benefit from the discounted rate on offer from The Key for School Leaders and The Key for School Governors.
Joining as part of the Warwickshire County Council partnership deal will mean you benefit from 25% off the standard rates for both services.
You can read more detail including pricing and how to subscribe here.
Training to support staff with management responsibilities
WES HR Direct are running the following training courses for staff in schools with management responsibilities:
-
Managing Sickness Absence Training - 20 May 2019
-
Discipline and Grievance Investigations Training - 22 May 2019
-
Managing Performance Training - 10 June 2019
For further details and to book please visit the WES website.
If you require any assistance, please contact our Business Development Team: hrbusinessdevelopment@warwickshire.gov.uk