The Narrowing the Gap Project 2015-2018

A recent project to support schools and settings to provide opportunities for the most vulnerable children in the Early Years has shown success in closing the achievement gap for some of our younger children.

The project, funded by the Smart Start programme and delivered over the last three years (2015-18), involved 57 early years schools and settings who were given access to a range of training and direct support including:

• Speech, language and communication development
• Parental engagement in learning
• Leadership development
• Improving practice
• Children’s well-being

There have been areas of success to celebrate in all strands of the project, with data analysis showing that the achievement gap has closed, and that children progressed through the early years steps, from entry to exit, towards achieving the goal of being school ready.

There have been additional benefits to all children in the setting, despite the main focus of the project being to support the most vulnerable learners, with many showing progression and increasing their skill sets in the prime areas of learning and development. Just under four steps of progress were made by vulnerable and other children in the settings that were involved in the Closing the Gap early years work in 2017/18. 

Improvements were seen in children’s speech, language and communication, pedagogy, practitioner knowledge in assessing children’s wellbeing and involvement and family engagement in children’s learning.

Where the project has been successful a range of targeted programmes and strategies have been used to improve learning environments, leadership aspirations and confidence in closing the gap.

The Narrowing the Gap Project has now come to an end however Warwickshire County Council is committed, through its Education Strategy, to improving educational outcomes, and therefore the life chances, of learners of all ages in Warwickshire.

For more information about the project please contact Dawn Jearum, Early Years Adviser - dawnjearum@warwickshire.gov.uk

Approaches to supporting disadvantaged pupils

The Department for Education (DfE) have published a report sharing the findings of research into how secondary schools across England are supporting the most academically able disadvantaged pupils.

The report, 'Approaches to supporting disadvantaged pupils' focuses particularly on what schools are doing to support disadvantaged high attaining pupils from key stage 2 to key stage 4. In particular, where these pupils are making better than average progress.

The research was conducted during the spring and summer terms during the academic year 2017/18 and included:

• a survey to understand the types of support provided by schools
• interviews and case study work in schools with established support in place

Free CPD for RE subject leaders and coordinators

Thursday 7th February 2019, 4.30 - 6pm at Seva School, Coventry

Focus of the session: Assessment in Religious Education

Religious Education (RE) subject leaders and coordinators from all Warwickshire primary, secondary and special schools are invited to the next twilight meeting on Thursday 7th February 2019, 4.30 - 6.00pm at Seva School, Link House, Eden Road, Coventry, CV2 2TB. 

These sessions are organised by Warwickshire County Council in partnership with the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) and are completely free to attend. They provide an excellent opportunity for teachers and subject coordinators of RE to:

• seek advice and support from the RE Facilitator
• receive updates on local and national developments in RE
• network with other RE coordinators
• develop subject knowledge

The focus for this particular twilight session will be assessment, following lots of requests from teachers who attended the last event held on 11th October.

Feedback from the teachers who attended in October was extremely positive; teachers said the session gave them suggestions for activities to take back to the classroom and provided 'fantastic ideas and resources' to share with other staff. It was also a really valuable opportunity to meet other RE leads and to share good practice.

How to book

To book your place email your details (name and school) to sacre@warwickshire.gov.uk.

Free Mental Health Awareness Workshops

Warwickshire’s Primary Mental Health Team is providing FREE Mental Health Awareness Workshops for universal professionals within North and South Warwickshire.

These introductory workshops aim to raise awareness of four key areas of child and adolescent mental health (ages 0-18 years):

• Eating Disorders
• Mood
• Attachment
• Self-Harm

In addition Boomerang Training will be available.

Please see the attached flyer for more information on what is covered in the training and available dates. Places are subject to availability.

For any queries or to book your place on a workshop / discuss a bespoke workshop, please email: Warwickshire.PMHT@covwarkpt.nhs.uk

Ofsted publishes annual report for 2017/18

Her Majesty's Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman launched the publication of Ofsted's 2017/18 Annual Report earlier this week. The report summarises the findings from Ofsted inspections, visits and research over the past year and provides an opportunity to comment on the quality of early years, schools, children’s social care and further education and skills.

In a speech given on 4th December, Amanda Speilman highlighted some of the main themes of the report which include off-rolling, SEND provision and 'stuck' schools. 

The full report recognises areas of success, as well as areas for improvement and also gives some pointers on the proposed new inspection framework, which will include changes that “strengthen the focus on early reading” and allow Ofsted to identify and report on schools which use off-rolling to remove pupils who might achieve less well.

Congratulations to Budbrooke Primary and St Michael's C of E Primary on their positive case studies highlighted in the report.

Consultation on admission arrangements for September 2020

For September 2020 we are consulting on making changes to the admissions over-subscription criteria.  In line with the Education Strategy and narrowing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers, we are proposing to amend the over-subscription criteria to weight in favour of disadvantaged pupils.

The consultation opened on 23rd November 2018 and will close on Friday 11 January 2019.

We would like to gain the opinion of as many schools as possible so would like to encourage you to look at the proposed changes and let us know what you think. The proposals are published on the admissions policies webpage. (The consultations are listed in chronological order so please refer to the documents listed with 2020-2021 entry).

All Warwickshire schools and surrounding local authorities should also have received a copy of the proposals by email. 

Responses and queries should be sent to: 

Post: Amy Taylor, School Admissions, Pupil and Student Services, Saltisford Office Park, Ansell Way, Warwick CV34 4UL

Email: schooladmissionsconsultation@warwickshire.gov.uk

Access to Realtime Data trends and visit reports

During the last term, WCC School Improvement Officers making visits to your school have been securely sharing their visit reports with you via Perspective Lite.

These are available for you to review online now, as are your Realtime Data Trends showing your headline school data alongside local and national averages for the past three years.

This is useful performance analysis material and is all housed in one place online. To be clear, you will only see the data and visit reports for your school(s).

You will be notified by email of any new visit reports or news items at your given email address. If you need to change your email, are still unaware of your account details or want to ask a question about the system, please contact el-businessimprovement@warwickshire.gov.uk

Are you interested in being a School Governor in Warwickshire?

Governor Services are looking to recruit school governors to fill current vacancies.

School governors are one of the country's largest voluntary groups and in Warwickshire we currently have governor vacancies in a number of schools. We are looking to strengthen our governance with energetic and driven individuals with a wide range of expertise across both education and business. Being a Governor is a rewarding and effective way of making a voluntary contribution to your community and to the lives of young people. Governors are appointed by the Governing Board and are the strategic leaders in schools.

Are you:

• Keen to put something back into the local community?
• Interested in education?
• Prepared to work as part of a team?
• Open to new ideas and ready to learn?
• Enthusiastic?
• Comfortable and confident in asking questions?
• Prepared to represent and promote your school?

Although the role of a governor is voluntary, you will be supported in your school by the Chair of Governors, Head teacher and fellow Governors and you will have access to support and personal training and development from the Local Authority Governor Services Team.

If you can answer yes to these questions, have the ability to commit your time and enthusiasm and you share our values in inspiring the next generation we would be keen to hear from you.

For more information on the role, for an application form, or for an informal chat please contact Amanda Gardiner in Governor Services by telephone: 01926 745139 or by email: amandagardiner@warwickshire.gov.uk

You can also find out more on the Governor Services webpage.

Students in Rugby benefit from Skills for Employment grant

A new logistics learning hub has recently opened at Rugby College, part of the Warwickshire College Group (WCG), thanks to a grant of £39,100 from Warwickshire County Council’s Skills for Employment programme.

The hub will help address a shortage of training provision for the logistics industry, one of the biggest employment sectors in Rugby, as it supports 23,700 jobs in Warwickshire.

Business Studies students who began their courses in September now have logistics as part of their course as a pilot project. In January, the first learners from small and medium-sized businesses in the sector will be enrolled onto industry-led level 2 & 3 Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) qualifications.

The hub will also provide a series of work experience opportunities as well as a brand new Logistics Office Simulation Facility.

Neil Coker, group vice-principal (curriculum) at WCG, said: "The aim is that the logistics hub provides students with an introduction to highly-rewarding jobs and careers in this sector that they had previously not considered. The sector needs well-trained, confident and well-educated young people and our students are the solution to future skills needs in transport management and logistics."

WCG is approved to deliver CILT Level 2 & 3 in Logistics & Transport. Interested parties can contact Charley Duxbury, Logistics Project Manager on: cduxbury@warwickshire.ac.uk or 07740419331 for more information.

Launch of consultation on T Levels

In a recent issue of Heads Up, we shared news of two national initiatives being launched to fund the introduction of T Levels (if you missed it you can read it here). T Levels will provide young people with a choice between technical and academic education post-16 and will be rolled out in September 2020, initially in the areas of Digital, Construction and Education and Childcare.

The government are now seeking views from education providers on how this funding will be distributed with a 3 month consultation launched on 27th November. The consultation sets out proposals for distributing funding to providers for the delivery of T levels from 2020 onwards, building on existing 16 to 19 funding arrangements.

An additional £500 million a year is being provided to meet the costs of additional teaching hours and industry placement requirements.

The consultation closes at 11.45pm on 19 February 2019.