Greetings colleagues,

I begin this week highlight the Ofsted inspection of Warwickshire's Children's Services, which has been judged Good overall and Good across all judgement areas. This is fantastic, for children and young people in Warwickshire, their families and carers and for all those who work with them. It was particularly pleasing to see recognition for the work of the Virtual School, the approach to children missing, children at risk of exploitation and also elective home education.  It's a reflection on what you all do to educate and support children and keep them safe. So thank you for all you have done and are doing, including your engagement with Warwickshire Safeguarding.

Cllr Jeff Morgan, Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services on hearing this news said: “I am so proud of the rating we have received from Ofsted today; our workforce and partner agencies have worked tirelessly to transform children’s services. Since the last inspection in 2017 and throughout the global pandemic, we have continued to focus on long-term improvements to better support some of our most vulnerable children and families, and I’m so pleased that Ofsted has recognised this. “I’d like to pay tribute to our partners and everyone in our children’s services, who all work with passion and purpose every day to improve the lives of children in Warwickshire. I would also like to thank the children and young people who engaged with us throughout our journey to improve services, we remain committed to making Warwickshire the best place it can be for them to live, learn and grow.  We know the work doesn’t stop here though. We are continuing to improve our children’s services to achieve excellence and we welcome the recommendations Ofsted have made to further strengthen our ambition of making Warwickshire a child friendly county.”

The Ofsted report can be found here.

In other news: 

Update on the Household Support fund administered by Warwickshire’s Local Welfare Scheme:

As a result of the additional funding received by Central Government through the Household Support Fund, the Local Welfare Scheme will once again be distributing automatic support towards fuel and food costs to parents/carers of children in Warwickshire schools/settings who are eligible for benefits related FSM.

They will be receiving the following in the form of automatic voucher payments:  

• From Friday 11th February, an automatic PayPoint cash voucher will be issued to each eligible household to the value of £60 to be used towards energy costs.  
• During February half term, an automatic Huggg supermarket voucher will be issued to parents/carers to the value of £21 per eligible child for 7 days inclusive of the weekend (21st to 27th February)
• We will follow the same process as previously and will send out letters to headteachers this week to share with parents/carers.  
• We can confirm that we will not need schools to send in updated pupil data.  

If you do have any queries, please email the Local Welfare Scheme Mailbox at localwelfarescheme@warwickshire.gov.uk

Young Green Shoots Climate Change project

Finally, this week I’m excited to share with you our Young Green Shoots competition, which I’m hoping you will share with your pupils and their parents and carers and encourage everyone to get involved. It gives children and young people from ages 4 to 19 the chance to win £2,500 for your school or college to spend on climate change projects. We hope this is an opportunity for some great discussions about climate change and the environment to take place, and the competition is really easy to enter. Pupils can submit either a short piece of writing or a drawing via email and each winner of the four age categories will win £2,500 for their school or college as well as having their work showcased at the Coventry & Warwickshire Climate Summit which takes place in March. The deadline is midnight on Sunday 27 February. For more details, see here.  

Best wishes and thanks

Chris