Heads Up 6 November 2020

HEADS UP

Dear colleagues, 

Hello all and welcome once more to Heads Up. 

It feels for many people that we are in very familiar territory since the announcement around a second lockdown.  The major difference this time being, of course, that government expects schools to stay open. 

That should be a very prescient testament to how valued all of your work is, and has been, in getting your schools open and keeping them open. This is real recognition that what you are doing is an absolute priority for the nation. 

As you will have seen, guidance has changed around the wearing of face coverings for students in secondary schools, which is mandatory from Monday. We have attached a poster for you to print off that you can display in corridors or areas of the school to support you in making sure that the students know when and where they need to adhere to that. We have also emailed directly with a proactive offer on face coverings for schools from our Warwickshire County Council team. 

Whilst we have been amazed at the resilience that our young people have shown, this is an additional potential anxiety for some. While we can admire the young people’s response to the year’s events, we should not take it for granted.  We have also added a PDF of the poster that will help your staff to signpost young people, if they think there might be an adverse reaction on some pupils’ mental health to all of the changes that are being introduced to their school routines. 

You will also have the revised toolkit for reporting cases to Public Health.  It is critical that you follow these guidelines so please have a look at that and make sure you are completely familiar with the process.  Also critical is that your risk assessments are on your school websites.  Please can I urge you to ensure that happens if they aren’t online. 

I’m sure you will all already be aware that the Schools Vaccine Team will be in touch in the coming days to arrange to come into schools and give the vaccine to pupils up to Year 7.  Look out for that.  Again, it’s vital that we keep as many ailments at bay as possible.  That will really help us to keep multiple absences down. 

Despite the sometimes bleak national news, there is some great stuff for us to celebrate locally. Congratulations to St Giles Junior School in Bedworth which has been shortlisted for the Alex Timpson ARC Attachment Award for 2020.  There’s a bit more on this later on in this issue but I wanted to make sure it was brought to everyone’s attention.  Well done to all at St Giles. 

And thanks to all schools who are opening their settings for the 11 plus test this weekend.  I appreciate that this adds to your workloads but it’s vital for the young people that we can offer a safe venue. Thanks for all your hard work. 

And finally, we were able to reopen all of our schools after half-term which was a great achievement, particularly in light of the rising cases nationally and regionally.  Again, a terrific testament to all of your hard work and diligence.   

Hard work and diligence should always be followed by rest and recuperation so I am going to go back to a familiar message and urge everyone to get some down time this weekend.  It has been richly deserved. 

Best wishes,

Ian Budd

Assistant Director for Education Services