Hello and welcome once again to Heads Up.
For many of you this is ‘hello again’ after so many of you were part of the Head teachers’ Conference on Wednesday.
It was very gratifying to have both the County Council Leader and Portfolio Holder for Children, Families and Education speak so glowingly about the work that schools have put in over the last 20 months. We, as a leadership team, could not have agreed more with the sentiments of their words.
It was also fantastic to hear from some of your fellow head teachers around recent Ofsted inspections. There is always learning from Ofsted inspections, whether they be those of your own school or other settings, where there is good practice or even some areas where performance could be improved. Sharing that learning can only put everyone in a stronger position to improve so thanks to all who spoke about their experiences.
The SEND provision across Warwickshire was also recently inspected jointly by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission. Sharing the outcome of the Inspection and the need to engage in a Written Statement of Action (WSOA) were very much at the heart of the second half of the conference, which was facilitated by my team. There were 5 Significant Areas of Weakness identified of which two can be directly linked to Warwickshire’s Schools.
Our SEND services are already starting to see the difference as a result of collective action with schools, working together to support staff skills, provision in schools, how we use our resources and how we develop the confidence and understanding with children and young people, their parents and carers.
It was very powerful to hear from Kim Garland, a Headteacher colleague from South Gloucestershire. Kim’s starting point with her SENCo and the local authority is that her school can meet need whenever she considers a child with SEND, and then uses this approach with all her staff. Kim emphasised this culture of ‘saying yes’ as the fundamental building block for an inclusive approach in her school.
As we move through our own SEND and Inclusion Change programme, we are also beginning to see fruit from our partnership with parents and carers in the form of the revised Warwickshire Local Offer. This was reviewed and redesigned following feedback and is now a much more easily navigated site, shaped and designed in response to partners’ requests.
It is now an extremely valuable resource for anyone looking for advice on SEND provision in Warwickshire and I would be very grateful if you could promote its use with your staff and with children, parents and carers. We have also just launched a New monthly SEND newsletter to update on the written statement of action, change programme and service improvements.
Having sung the praises of feedback from our various partners, I am going to ask the same of you. Please follow this link to a feedback form and let us know your views on the conference. It is for your benefit so we really want to know what worked best for you.
I shall sign off with a thanks to all who helped organise the event. I know a lot of hard work goes into such an event and that was clear in the quality of the discussions. But, most of all, thanks to you all for your attendance and input. That it went so well was also down to your energy and enthusiasm. Have a good weekend, everyone.
Duane Chappell