Interim Head of Service, Education and Learning

Nigel Minns has now moved on to take up his secondment with the Department for Education to work alongside the Regional Schools Commissioner for the West Midlands. We wish him the best of luck in this role.

Jane Spilsbury will act as the main contact with schools in order to provide you with some consistency, and will represent the Local Authority at various headteacher meetings. Sally Taylor, an experienced Head of Education, will provide interim cover while Nigel is seconded to the DfE and will take forward the work on developing a Local Authority MAT.   

For the last year, Sally has been the part time interim CEO of the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership.  The Arthur Terry Learning partnership consists of 7 schools: 3 secondaries including The Coleshill School and 4 primaries.  Previously she was Director of Education for Birmingham City Council for 5 years and Assistant Director for Raising Achievement for Oxfordshire County Council for 2 years.  Sally trained as a teacher in Inner London and ran a secondary school in Kent.

Sally can be contacted via email sallytaylor@warwickshire.gov.uk

or by telephone on 01926 582588.

Your Fischer Family Trust (FFT) subscription cost is changing

After 3 years at the same price, FFT are changing their subscription costs for 2017/18.  FFT Aspire is the website to which three quarters of all Warwickshire schools currently subscribe through the local authority to get pupil and school level attainment dashboards and pupil/school level targets and estimates.

FFT are moving to a flat-fee depending on school type plus a ‘per pupil’ charge for each school so that their pricing structures are more in line with other data analysis and assessment tools used by schools.

As a result of these changes, some schools will see a reduction in their annual FFT subscription from next year, however, larger primary schools/academies and secondary schools/academies will see an increase.  The table below will give you an idea of how much your 2017/18 FFT subscription through the local authority could cost from 1st April 2017 onwards:

Table 1: Subscribing through the local authority

The local authority would like to gain an indication now from every school and academy about whether or not you are interested in subscribing to FFT next year through this model.  We would be grateful if you could indicate Yes or No via this link: FFT 2017/18 Subscription Poll

This will allow us to gauge the demand for FFT among our schools.  If there is not enough demand the LA will no longer be able to support this subscription model and schools would need to subscribe directly to FFT. Costs of subscribing directly to FFT are significantly higher than via the local authority:

Table 2: Subscribing directly with FFT

We will feedback the results of the subscription poll in a future newsletter.

If you have any queries about this information, please contact our Business Intelligence Team via e-mail: businessintelligence@warwickshire.gov.uk.

Governing Board Membership

It’s the time of the school year when Governing Boards review and update their membership information and we are asking all Clerks to ensure we at Governor Services are also updated.

To help us to update our records we have revised the School Governing Board Details Form. We would be grateful if you could complete and return the form to amandagardiner@warwickshire.gov.uk by Friday 21st October 2016, and in the future whenever you need to advise the team of any changes.   

The information you provide will be used to:

• Maintain an accurate governors’ database
• Support the recruitment of governors
• Communicate directly with governors and governing boards
• Respond to questions from the DfE, County Councillors etc.

All of which are used by Governor Services for the purposes of School Governor Improvement.

Guidance published on dealing with ‘sexting’ in schools

In 2010, the government established the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) to discuss and take action on topical issues concerning children’s use of the internet.

More on UKCCIS can be found online here: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/uk-council-for-child-internet-safety-ukccis

In August 2016 UKCCIS published new non-statutory guidance for schools on responding to incidents of ‘sexting’.  The guidance covers areas such as:

• Responding to disclosures
• Handling devices and imagery
• Risk-assessing situations
• Involving other agencies
• Preventative education
• Working with parents
• Reporting imagery to providers

The guidance on sexting is non-statutory, but is designed to be read alongside the Department for Education’s statutory safeguarding guidance, Keeping Children Safe in Education, and its non-statutory advice on Searching, Screening and Confiscation.

The guidance defines sexting on page 5 as "youth-produced sexual imagery", i.e. young people sharing sexual photographs or videos that they or another young person have created of themselves.

A guidance document for schools on sexting, developed by organisations including Kent County Council and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) features advice on addressing sexting in school policies:

Example policies from primary schools

Croxteth Primary School in Liverpool includes information about peer-to-peer abuse, including sexting, on pages 12-13 of its safeguarding policy.

Halstow Primary School has an e-safety policy that includes information about various e-safety issues, including sexting (see page 9).

Example policies from secondary schools

John Port School in Derbyshire has a sexting policy that relays guidance on dealing with incidents, including how to limit the negative impact of incidents and prevent them from occurring in future.

Glenthorne High School has an anti-sexting policy which forms part of its safeguarding policy, and is also referenced in its behaviour and e-safety policies.

Guidance for Young People

As part of their #Be Cyber Smart campaign, Warwickshire Police have put together some guidance for young people on the use of social media and 'sexting' activities. We would encourage schools to promote this within school and refer young people to the website for advice and guidance: https://www.warwickshire.police.uk/article/10484/Sexting-Think-twice

More information about online safety can also be found at:

https://www.getsafeonline.org/

Anti-bullying and childhood obesity initiatives

Thousands more children to benefit from anti-bullying app

£4.4 million government fund backs projects including tootoot app to let children use screenshots of online abuse to report bullying.

Full details available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-more-children-to-benefit-from-anti-bullying-app

_________________________________________________________________________

Childhood obesity: a plan for action

The government’s plan for action to significantly reduce childhood obesity by supporting healthier choices was published on 18 August 2016.

More information available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/childhood-obesity-a-plan-for-action

Under the plan there will be:

• A requirement for all primary schools to provide at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day for pupils through, for example, active breaktimes, PE lessons, extra-curricular clubs and active lessons
• An interactive online tool produced to help schools plan the daily half hour of physical activity
• The introduction of a voluntary ‘healthy schools rating scheme’. The rating criteria will be decided after consultation with schools and experts and will form part of Ofsted inspections being introduced from September 2017
• Further guidance from Public Health England for primary schools to help them to understand which interventions work
• An annual competition to recognise the schools running the best healthy lifestyle projects

Other initiatives announced in the childhood obesity strategy include:

• An update to the school food standards to reflect new dietary recommendations, and a campaign to get all academies to sign up to the standards
• Revised menus and physical activity guidelines for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
• New advice for schools to be published for 2017/18 on how to work with school nurses and health professionals to help pupils develop healthier lifestyles
• Training for school nurses on influencing behaviour change and initiating difficult conversations about health and wellbeing
• Access to a co-ordinated offer of high quality sport and physical activity programmes for every primary school from September 2017
• Targets to increase the number of children walking to school, and continuing support for the bikeability cycle training scheme for children
• A thematic review, to be conducted by Ofsted in 2017, on obesity, healthy eating and physical activity in schools, to find examples of good practice and recommendations on what more schools can do

CPS Violence against Women and Girls crime report 2015-16

In March 2016, the government launched a strategy to end Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). The strategy introduced new offences to tackle stalking and for forcing someone to marry against their will. There were also new offences for coercive and controlling behaviour, and new protection orders for domestic violence, sexual violence and female genital mutilation.

The latest Violence against Women and Girls crime report from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for 2015-16 covers many of these strands and reflects some positive figures in terms of the number of convictions for offences against women and girls.

Schools are perfectly placed to help to reduce these figures further in the future by working with children and young people to help them understand more about healthy relationships.  The organisations featured in this issue of the newsletter all offer support to schools in promoting well being and keeping children and young people safe.

Headlines

• CPS are prosecuting and convicting more defendants of domestic abuse, rape, sexual offences and child sexual abuse than ever before.

• In 2015/16 there were more than 8,500 convictions for VAWG crimes, an increase from 73.5% in 2014/15 to 74.2% in 2015-16.

• There was the highest volume of prosecutions ever for domestic abuse with more than 75,000 convictions with a 74.5% conviction rate (73.9% conviction rate in 2014-15).

• There were more than 200 so-called revenge pornography prosecutions since the new legislation introduced in April 2015, which is indicative of the growing number of offences occurring through social media.

• By March 2016 there were already 5 successful prosecutions for the offence of using controlling or coercive behaviour (introduced in December 2015).

• The CPS conviction rate for rape rose to 57.9% from 56.9% in 2014-15. More than 4,600 defendants were prosecuted for rape offences with convictions being secured in 2,689 of these – the highest volumes ever for some of the most complex cases handled by the CPS.

• There was an increase of almost 17% in the number of convictions for child sexual abuse, equating to 4,643 convictions in 2015-16 with a conviction rate of 74.7%.

Warwickshire’s conviction rates are higher than the national for all four of the categories below:

• VAWG - Warwickshire 79.5% (622 convictions); National 74.2% (87,275)

• Domestic Abuse – Warwickshire 79.4% (527 convictions); National 74.5% (75,235)

• Rape – Warwickshire 69% (20 convictions); National 57.9% (2,689)

• Sexual Offences – Warwickshire 84.3% (75 convictions); National 78.0% (9,351)

Consultation on creating “more good school places”

On 12 September 2016, the Department for Education (DfE) launched a consultation on proposals to create "more good school places".

The proposals include:

• Allowing existing selective schools to expand, and new selective schools to open, while ensuring they support non-selective schools
• Allowing new faith free schools to select up to 100% of their pupils based on their faith, while ensuring they include pupils from different backgrounds
• Expecting independent schools to support existing state schools, open new state schools or offer funded places to children whose families cannot afford to pay fees
• Asking universities to commit to sponsoring or setting up new schools in exchange for being able to charge higher fees

The DfE has published a consultation document with more information on the proposals.

The consultation closes on 12 December 2016.

Warwickshire Youth Parliament

Warwickshire Youth Parliament

Run by young people, the UK Youth Parliament provides opportunities for 11-18 year old's to use their voice in a creative way to bring about social change. This year eight young people will be elected as either Members of Youth Parliament (MYP) or Deputy Members of Youth Parliament, to act on behalf of the young people across Warwickshire at a regional and national level. This includes an opportunity to sit and debate with their fellow MYP’s across the country in the House of Commons.

Alongside this group, another 15 young people from Warwickshire (three per district) will be elected to represent young people in their local district or borough as part of VOX – Warwickshire Youth Council.

Both groups of young people will have a one year term of office, meeting on a monthly basis. They will also have the chance to be involved in local forums and a variety of other opportunities, such as interviews, meeting key decision makers across the county, being consulted by a variety of organisations.

Are there are any young people in your school or college who would be a suitable candidate in the forthcoming elections? Anyone aged between 11 and 18 (or up to 25 for young people with disabilities) is eligible for election. Look out for more information and promotional material giving details of how young people and schools can get involved.

Some key dates to keep in mind:

Nominations for both elections closes on 2 December 2016 (28 of November for web applications).
Elections are held for two weeks starting on Monday 23 January until Friday 3 February 2017, with the results being announced on Thursday 9 February 2017 at Shire Hall Warwick.

For more information please contact your local youth worker or Cheryl Jones on cheryljones@warwickshire.gov.uk.

Warwickshire Youth Parliament’s work on mental health

One of this year’s national campaigns focused on mental health, with the aim of changing attitudes to generate and increase equality.  Last year’s campaign particularly focused on raising awareness of mental health illnesses, and how services need to be improved for young people.

Warwickshire Youth Parliament have achieved this in a number of ways:

• Packs produced for schools including leaflets for students & teachers
• Fundraising for Warwickshire based charities such as Safeline

• Local forums around Warwickshire took part in the youth consultations with Young Minds
• CAMHS commissioners met with Nuneaton and Atherstone forums
• The main issues raised by young people were:
  • Services are not well advertised
  • Readily available information is vital to allow people to gain awareness and know who to turn to before a problem requires emergency intervention
  • Waiting lists are too long
  • Lack of helplines and early intervention
  • Transition from child to adult services is difficult

One of the top issues voted in the UK Youth Parliament’s annual ‘Make Your Mark’ ballot last year was mental health, with over 90,349 young people voting for it nationally. The ballot decides what members of the UK Youth Parliament should debate and vote on their campaigns for the following year. This year’s debate will take place on Friday 11 November 2016 within the House of Commons.

For the 2015 National Sitting, the UK Youth Parliament collected information about gaps in mental health care provision across the country.  This resulted in the Youth Select Committee publishing the Young People's Mental Health Report 2015 on Tuesday 17 November 2015.

The Government’s response published in January 2016 highlighted 18 recommendations.

If you would like copies of our newly published leaflets for students or teachers about mental health, please contact cheryljones@warwickshire.gov.uk or please visit our website.

Family Learning in Warwickshire

Adult and Community Learning Service

Family Learning can support your school and families in raising children’s attainment and increase parents’ engagement in the community. Long term benefits include positive effects in behaviour and attitudes to learning across the whole family. All our courses are free.

We are able to offer a range of courses for your school, and will work with you to ensure that they support your policies and targets.  Some courses are intended for adults only, whilst others are for parents and children to work together. Examples of our courses include:

• Helping your child with maths or english
• Family maths or english
• Helping your child with phonics
• Storysacks
• Love food, save money – healthy eating

We also provide workshops to engage families in working together. Workshops cover a wide variety of areas including: sharing stories, literacy, maths, phonics, healthy eating and art activities. We can develop workshops to a chosen theme to support the work of schools.

If you would like further information please contact Jan Lennon: 01926 736390

janlennon@warwickshire.gov.uk

www.warwickshire.gov.uk

www.facebook.com/warksacl

Skills for Employment

A date for your diary

The 2017 conference for secondary headteachers, college principals and business leaders will take place on 13th March 7.30am – 10 am at Chesford Grange Hotel near Kenilworth. The focus of the conference will be on illustrating sustainable best practice and measuring the impact of employability activity. Full details will be provided in the December edition of Heads Up.

Major Grant opportunity

Following the success of last year's grants, a further £250,000 is now available to fund innovative careers and employability activity in high priority sectors or geographic areas in order to address demonstrable skills issues.  While this list is not exhaustive, bids are particularly welcome for the following sectors:

• Business & professional services;
• Care/health;
• Construction;
• Digital/IT;
• Hospitality/tourism.

Bids must be from partnerships comprising at least one education and one business partner.

Please click on the following links for the guidance and bidding form. The deadline for bids is 5pm 16 November 2016.

Governors achieve National Leader of Governance status

Congratulations to three governors from Warwickshire schools who have achieved National Leader of Governance (NLG) status through the National College for Teaching and Leadership. This is an impressive achievement which will support our work to strengthen school governance across the county. 

The governors are:

Sue Casey (Kenilworth School)

Gail Flint (Milby Primary)

Yvonne Salter-Wright (St. Augustine's Catholic Primary)

If you are an experienced chair of governor interested in supporting chairs of governors in other schools, you can apply to be a NLG. This is part of the government's plan to give schools a central role in developing a self-improving and sustainable school-led system.

The current application round is closed however governors can register their interest in becoming an NLG here.

Prejudiced Related Incidents Report

Free trial to schools social network

An exciting new service to link schools across the UK so that the pupils can see how their peers around the UK live day to day.  

Very useful helping the schools to fulfil OFSTED’s requirements for British Values and to implement the Prevent strategy.

The Big Classroom is a social network solely for schools so it is completely safe and secure. Each school has its own account to which it can upload pictures, videos and blogs about the exciting and interesting projects they undertake. Big Classroom will then regularly link them with "friend schools" which have been chosen strategically to be contrasting in terms of culture, faith, ethnicity or location.

At regular intervals classes sit down and look at their breaking news (these are updates from their friend schools) to see what is happening in schools around the UK. The pupils can then discuss what they see and send messages questioning the things that interest them and take part in joint projects together. Over time they'll get to know the other pupils and have a much greater understanding of other cultures and communities.

This is the service in a nutshell, please feel free to google 'The Big Classroom' for more details. 

We have agreed with your local authority to give all the schools a free 2-month trial of our service.

Please contact Cathy on: 01772 286597 for more information or to arrange a presentation at a cluster meeting or similar.

Stratford-upon-Avon School and Stratford-upon-Avon College feature in government review

Stratford upon Avon School and College have been featured in the Parliamentary Review.

The review is a key fixture in the political calendar and showcases some of the best practices in the public and private sector.

Copies of the paper are sent out to tens of thousands of leading policymakers and it is also used as a blueprint for reform and success.

Stratford College and Stratford School have both been recognised in the review’s higher education and secondary education sections respectively.

School headteacher Neil Wallace said: “We are honoured to have been selected nationally as an example of best practice for such a prestigious publication.

“It is another affirmation of the outstanding progress that we have made as a school over the last few years.

“The case study highlights the cultural change at the school and the impact of employing high-quality, engaging teachers who create a unique atmosphere in an area where grammar schools are often presumed to be superior.”

Stratford College was equally as delighted – thanking those who have helped achieve success.

Principal Nicola Mannock said: “We are immensely proud to have our ethos and achievements recognised and to be selected to represent the best that the country has to offer in further and higher education.

“It reflects on everyone associated with the college and I should like to thank them all sincerely for their contribution in making us worthy of this honour.”

Director of the review, Daniel Yossman, has spoken out about the quality of the organisations featured in the paper.

He said: “It’s been an utter privilege to work with a range of organisations from across the country in this year’s review.

“Without their input, our aims of spreading expert knowledge and raising standards would not be achievable.

“They’ll be a hard act to follow and next year’s organisations will have to be on the top of their game to meet the challenge.”

Published by Stratford Observer at 7:53am, Sep 26, 2016: http://stratfordobserver.co.uk/news/outstanding-stratford-school-college-feature-government-review/

The Parliamentary Review is available here.

Campion pupils receive special Duke of Edinburgh award

Top row from left: Isabel Leon, Jessica Floyd.

Bottom row from left: Daniel Leon, Jacob Floyd, Jonathan Archer

Five Campion School pupils recently received a special version of the Duke of Edinburgh award in aid of its 60th anniversary. Jonathan Archer, Jacob Floyd, Jessica Floyd, Daniel Leon and Isabel Leon worked together to complete the Diamond Duke of Edinburgh award. To earn the award, they had to complete a personal challenge which is particularly difficult to them while raising at least £60 for charity. All five completed a two-day, 20-mile hike across the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire and held a cake and plant sale to raise money for their charities.

Published by Leamington Courier at 14:54 on Friday 23 September 2016. http://www.leamingtoncourier.co.uk/news/campion-pupils-receive-special-duke-of-edinburgh-award-1-7594775

Bilton Junior School Pupils...where are they now?

Its been a very happy return to Bilton Junior School for former pupils Jonathan Evans and Beth Gale, who are now on the teaching staff and are pictured here with head Alex Norton, launching the hunt for other past students. 

It's got to be a good sign when past pupils are happy to kick off their teaching careers by heading back to their former school.

That’s certainly the case at Bilton CofE Junior School, which currently has two teachers who grabbed the chance to return to the place which proved an inspiration to them in their younger days.

The two in question are Beth Gale, a Year 5 class teacher and English co-ordinator, and Jonathan Evans, a Year 4 teacher and PE co-ordinator.

And while they are in an ideal position to inspire the current generation, the school is also looking to track down other past pupils to show the wide range of things people have gone on to do.

Head Alex Norton said: “Our motto is ‘Inspire, Challenge, Achieve’ and we are always looking at ways to inspire our children. “I have been teaching at the school for 13 years so know the university graduates coming through now and I would love to see what people went off to do after their good grounding at our amazing school.”

Both Beth and Jonathan had no doubt about the decision to come back. In a curious turn of events both started teaching in what had been their own Year 6 classroom, while they also had to adjust to some of their new colleagues having been on the staff when they were pupils.

Beth was at BJS from 1999-2003 and said: “Many of my memories are of the fun stuff. We made Greek pots and because we had a kiln we were able to fire them. We did rounders on the field, there was the Millennium event and the Year 6 play when my twin sister got the lead role and I was gutted!” By now she had declared she wanted to be a teacher, going on to Bilton High, Warwickshire College and then to York St John University.

Jonathan, two years older than Beth, planned a different career, intending to go into design. He went to Ashlawn and then to Coventry University to study product design but as he finished his degree he realised he wanted more than the office job that seemed to lie ahead.

Published by Rugby Advertiser at 19:08 Sunday 25 September 2016: http://www.rugbyadvertiser.co.uk/news/education/bilton-junior-school-pupils-where-are-you-now-1-7596525

Rugby High pupils hide their memories away

Students at Rugby High have filled time capsules to be buried inside their new sports hall.

Each form has filled toolboxes with items which reflect their lives at Rugby High.

A school diary, a memory stick containing photos taken round school, a school jumper and a bus pass are among the objects that will be buried as the interior walls of the hall.

A spokesman said: “Who knows when these boxes will come to light again? A plan of exactly where the boxes are will be filed away. “Imagine the delight for future generations looking back at life in 2016.”

Pictured are Mae Howard, Vicky Holmes and Amelia Dickens.

Published by Rugby Advertiser at 17:33 on Monday 26 September 2016: http://www.rugbyadvertiser.co.uk/news/education/rugby-high-pupils-hide-their-memories-away-1-7598047

Henley School pupil crowned UK’s best young driver

A TEENAGER has been crowned the UK’s best young driver – at the age of just 13.

Luke Swallow, who attends Henley School, took to the road like a fish to water and made his way around the British Motor Museum when he was put through his paces during the Young Driver Challenge.

The 13-year-old – who is still four years away from applying for his provisional licence – impressed the judges at the Young Driver Challenge finals with his ability behind the wheel.

Luke said: “I still can’t believe I’m the winner and I can’t stop smiling.

“Making it to the final was something I was really pleased to have achieved but then to be crowned overall winner in my age category was just amazing.

“Everyone at the final was driving at a really high standard so the competition was tough, and the test itself was hard work – but great fun.”

The Young Driver Challenge is part of an initiative to drill into youngsters the importance of being responsible and safe on the road before they can officially learn to drive.

Luke added: “As well as doing independent driving, we had to demonstrate things like parallel parking, reversing, tight steering, emergency stops and turns in the road.

“Luckily my Young Driver lessons have taught me well and it has prepared me when I can officially learn to drive.

“Hopefully I can live up to my best young driver title.”

Published by Stratford Observer at 1:12pm, Sep 23, 2016:

http://stratfordobserver.co.uk/news/henley-school-pupil-crowned-uks-best-young-driver/

CSE Safeguarding Training

We all recognise that talking to children and young people about sex and relationships can be difficult. Child sexual exploitation (CSE) is a very real issue for many children and young people in Warwickshire and it is important to be able to have honest and open discussions with young people about healthy, non-abusive relationships. The ‘Chelsea’s Choice’ production, offered to all Year 8 students in November, will raise some of these issues.

Warwickshire CSE Team delivers multi-agency training with the Warwickshire Safeguarding Children Board which is free to access for all workers in Warwickshire. We do recognise that it can be problematic for schools to release teaching staff for multi-agency training and will therefore be offering awareness raising training in schools to ensure that all staff feel able to identify and respond appropriately to concerns around CSE.

For more information about the Warwickshire ‘Something’s Not Right’ CSE Campaign please see the website at:  www.warwickshirecse.co.uk.

If you would like copies of any of the materials to support your work in addressing CSE please contact Katy Shipley (details below).

The Barnardo’s team has also developed a resource for schools and universal services called ‘Real Love Rocks’ which builds on our specialist knowledge and experience of working with children and young people abused through child sexual exploitation. The resource offers lessons, workshops and activities covering a number of topics, including:

• Healthy relationships
• Consent
• Grooming
• Contraception
• Risk and Keeping Safe
• Child Sexual Exploitation
• Impact of Porn and Sexting

This resource is designed to be delivered across PSHE in secondary schools and can be delivered by staff with full lesson plans and resources included. We are offering free bespoke training to staff alongside the CSE Awareness to implement and deliver the ‘Real Love Rocks’ PSHE lessons in your school.

For more information please contact Katy Shipley (Barnardo’s CSE Project Worker)                                               

Email: katy.shipley@barnardos.org.uk  Telephone: 07702 338667

Professionals working with Vulnerable Learners

A wide range of training courses for professionals working with vulnerable learners is available through the Warwickshire Education Service (WES). Courses range from sensory strategies for the classroom to learning about safe and effective home visits, to understanding and implementing the personalisation agenda. Most courses incur a small fee and details of all courses on offer are available in the full brochure on the WES website.

Vulnerable learners also offer a free course for anyone new to a Warwickshire school or new in role. Whether you are a new teacher, senior leader, head, special needs coordinator, attendance lead, head of year, if you want to find out more about vulnerable learner services, this training session is for you. Come and meet us to find out how we work together to meet the range of needs in your setting. You will have the opportunity to work through some case studies, hear about further training and collect your copy of the SEND Provision Matrix. You will also have the opportunity to network with others new to the county or new in role.

Date: 30 November 2016

Venue: Pound Lane

Time: 3.15 - 5pm

Or

Date: 27 February 2017

Venue: Bulkington Village Centre

Time: 3.15 - 5pm

Contact helenreading@warwickshire.gov.uk or maryconnelly@warwickshire.gov.uk to book.

Attachment Aware Schools

A number of Warwickshire schools are training their staff to better understand and manage the behaviour of pupils with attachment needs. Not only does the evidence from the Attachment Aware Schools project suggest that attachment aware schools have fewer incidences of poor behaviour but they can become happier places for pupils and teachers, leading to improved standards.

As many Looked After Children have attachment needs, the Virtual School and Education Psychology Service are offering training at a reduced price to schools with Warwickshire LAC. To ensure impact, the training should take place over a whole day and should be part of an integrated strategy to improve behaviour.

Any school wishing to be take advantage of this opportunity should contact the Virtual School on 01926 742018 or virtualschool@warwickshire.gov.uk

Nationally there is a range of emerging best practice in using the findings of neuroscience, in particular understanding the processes of attachment and trauma, to support children to achieve their potential. The Attachment Research Community (ARC) is a membership organisation dedicated to sharing this best practice, and to turning important research and understanding into ways of working that make a difference. ARC is holding its first conference on 7th December at the NEC. This would be an ideal opportunity to learn from the leading experts, and hear from schools which have already set out on a journey of Attachment Aware working.

For more details about the conference visit https://the-arc.org.uk/

Talkingshop - Free Training for Secondary Schools

FFT Primary Roadshow comes to Warwickshire

Teachers confused about scaled scores can now get to grips with the government’s new method of reporting results by attending a roadshow in Leicester City FC, Leicester on Wednesday 16 November.

The roadshow is open to both subscribers and those who don’t subscribe to FFT Aspire

Education Data expert FFT Education is hosting the Life Beyond Levels: Welcome To Scaled Scores roadshow in venues across England this autumn. 

The Key Stage 2 roadshow is aimed at head teachers and senior leaders in primary and junior schools.

Schools are set to discover if they are improving thanks to FFT’s modelling of scaled score trends. The two hour session will also reveal how to improve performance and get to grips with the government’s new progress measures.

The event will cover an evaluation of each attending school’s performance and the likely performance of its pupils in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Schools will also receive an FFT data report. 

The cost of attending a Life Beyond Levels, Welcome to Scaled Scores Roadshow is £75 + vat per delegate. To book and for more information please visit http://roadshow.fft.org.uk/primary/

For more information about the roadshow please click here

CPD - Leading and managing high achievement in primary school maths

Andrew Jeffrey Independent Maths Expert will be leading a professional development day on 'Preventing the Gap - Making Big Impacts through Small Changes in Mathematics.

The session, sponsored by Oxford University Press and organised by the Local Authority, is for headteachers, primary maths subject leaders and SLT members. Numbers will be limited to 80 delegates (max 2 delegates per school) so please book early. There will be a non-profit charge of £15 to cover the cost of the venue, refreshments and lunch.

Date: Wednesday 8th February 2017 

Venue: Ansty Golf Centre, Brinklow Road, Ansty, Coventry, CV7 9JL

Time: 9:30 - 3:30pm

Further details are on the attached flyer.

Harris C of E Academy School Sports Partnership CPD Programme 2016/2017

SUMMARY OF COURSES PLANNED IN 2016/2017: Please click here for course information

Please note that all details are subject to change. Booking is essential for all courses.

Please contact Debbie Green for further information or to book a place on a course.

Primary Headteachers Briefings

These briefings are run by the Local Authority and are open to all leaders of primary phase settings in Warwickshire, including early years, infant, junior, special schools, academies and Free Schools and are FREE to attend.

We hold two briefings each term with the same agenda to allow colleagues from across the county the opportunity to attend the session most convenient for them. Booking details will be circulated in the next newsletter and via email to all headteachers.

Autumn Term:

Wed 9th November 2016, 9.00am - 12.30pm

Wed 16th November 2016, 9.00am - 12.30pm

Spring Term:

Tue 28 March 2017, 9.00am - 12.30pm

Wed 29 March 2017, 9.00am - 12.30pm

Summer Term:

Tue 13 June 2017, 9.00am - 12.30pm

Wed 14 June 2017, 9.00am - 12.30pm

All venues to be confirmed. 

Secondary Heads' and College Principals' Briefings

These briefings are run by the Local Authority and open to all leaders of secondary phase settings in Warwickshire, including maintained secondary schools, academies, Free Schools and Further Education and Sixth Form Colleges and are FREE to attend.

Autumn Term:

Tue 22 Nov 2016, 9.00am - 12.30pm

Spring Term:

To be confirmed

Summer Term:

Thu 29th June 2017, 9am - 12.30pm

All venues to be confirmed.

Closing the Gap Conference - reminder

Friday 2 December 2016 (morning only), Chesford Grange, Kenilworth

Your guide to who's new and who's leaving

We would like to congratulate the following staff on their recent appointments and look forward to working with them over the coming months:

Michelle Oliphant, has been appointed as Principal at Hartshill School. She was previously the Deputy Headteacher. Michelle's career first started as a PE and English teacher, and she credits her own high school education as inspiring her to get into teaching. 

Christine Green, headteacher of the Rugby Free (Secondary) School, which opened in September. Christine was previously the Deputy Headteacher at Lyng Hall School in Coventry where her past roles have included Head of Drama and Music and Assistant Headteacher.

The Warwickshire School Health and Wellbeing Service

The Warwickshire School Health and Wellbeing Service is your school nurse-led service – friendly, confidential and free for all school aged children (5-19 years) and their families. We are currently delivering the health needs assessments for reception and year 6 students, which will identify your individual school public health priorities for 2017. Your public health plan will be with you shortly based on data collected from 2015/16. We value your support in this process and would ask to continue to encourage the current reception parents to complete the online assessment.

This year we will also be launching the year 9 health needs assessment which will enable the service to meet the identified needs of young people in secondary schools.

If you need any support for any child in your school please contact us on 03300 245 204 or email WarwickshireSHWBservice@compass-uk.org. Or email one of the area contacts below:

WSHWS_Rugby@welearn365.com
WSHWS_Stratford@welearn365.com
WSHWS_Nuneaton@welearn365.com

Managing Resilience, Stress and Wellbeing

The effective management of resilience, stress and wellbeing is an important factor for schools to consider in their overall management of health and safety in the workplace.

Effective management commitment and support promotes the importance of health and wellbeing and for preventing/reducing the incidence and impact of work-related stress.

 The following guidance information is available to help support schools:

• The WCC Managing Resilience, Stress and Wellbeing Policy and supporting guidance documentation (for schools where WCC is the employer)
• The HSE management standards approach to identifying and managing the causes of work-related stress
• Health and Safety Executive website http://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/index.htm
• WCC ‘five ways to wellbeing in Warwickshire’ information http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/5ways

In addition, managing resilience and personal resilience training is available to schools where WCC is the employer.

For further information and guidance, contact the WCC Corporate Health, Safety & Wellbeing Service on 01926 476803 email healthandsafety@warwickshire.gov.uk

Respect Yourself update

The Respect Yourself programme aims to give young people the power to make positive, informed decisions about their relationships and sexual health. Its website (www.respectyourself.info) provides comprehensive, sex positive information for 13–25 year olds.

Other local areas have seen the value of our approach. Both Gloucestershire and Doncaster have licenced versions of our website. We are promoting the website and hope to have it used more widely across the country.

A team of young people volunteer their time to support the programme. They recently developed and help lead a child sexual exploitation youth conference (‘Let’s talk about Sexting’), that was attended by 14 KS3/4 settings. Currently their new resource for parents is being finalised for inclusion on the Respect Yourself website.

We are keen to work with secondary schools. We are able to offer the ‘Doing It’ Relationship and Sex Ed (RSE) programme free to schools. This is funded through public health – it includes staff training and access to a suite of online resources.

Our primary school RSE programme ‘Spring Fever’ has been oversubscribed for this year. Currently nearly 50 schools are signed up. We hope to secure funding to support another 20 schools in the next financial year.

For further information or queries please contact Luke Carter, Project Manager - Respect Yourself: lukecarter@warwickshire.gov.uk; tel: 01926 414984.

Warwickshire Music: Supporting your vision

We all want to ensure that our students enjoy a memorable experience while at school.  We all know that music is a major part of the life of nearly every young person. We also know that with rising stress levels amongst students, music can have invaluable benefits on the wellbeing of our young people.

How students feel about themselves is crucial to their learning and narrowing the gap has to mean continuing to offer a breadth of experience and opportunity.

Warwickshire Music is the lead organisation for the Warwickshire Music Hub. This means that we can support schools in all sorts of ways to realise their vision and give their students a memorable experience.

Substantial Hub funding gives partner schools the opportunity to access a large range of advice and resources including instruments, IT and sound recording/PA equipment. Schools are also able to benefit from exciting and high quality programmes and partnerships that offer a memorable experience to children of all ages.

• Singing for Sounds is a unique language development programme for children in nursery and reception – allaying parents’ fears over speech and language development in young children and phonics testing in key stage 1.
• UpBeat offers whole class instrumental tuition in over 100 schools – highlighting the ethos that ‘every child matters’.

‘Upbeat is too good not to have it in my school curriculum’

Julie Leeman – Head at Welford-on-Avon Primary School

• Playtastic is a unique approach to creating the school band from scratch – encouraging communication and social interaction between children.

‘I didn’t know what a violin was; now I’m playing one!’

Edward – pupil at The Ferncumbe Primary School

•  Singing Playgrounds is a fantastic partnership that gets the entire school singing – helping to reduce anxiety and problems in the playground.
•  World Music and Rock & Pop initiatives provide exciting workshops for all ages – creating “memorable experiences” and interaction between all ages.

‘Thanks very much for letting Alcester play at RockFest!

It was such a great experience for them. You and your team did a great job!’

Renny Badham, Alcester Academy

•   Music Centre and County group activities across Warwickshire – building confidence in children and recognition of their abilities.
•   A dedicated Music Therapy team supports all children in a range of schools – helping with anxiety issues, uncertainty and stress levels.

Warwickshire schools have been supported by Warwickshire Music for over 60 years.   Click on the links below for our recent major events at the University of Warwick Arts Centre for just a glimpse of what we can do to enrich the lives of your students.

Link to Warwick Arts Centre March 2016 video

Link to Warwick Arts Centre May 2016 video

Link to Warwickshire Music for Life Magazine

Opportunity for secondary age students - Warwickshire Police Youth Academy Oct 2016

For secondary age students interested in a career in the police/emergency services

Warwickshire Police is holding a two day event on 15th and 16th October for the young people of Warwickshire, and we are called the Warwickshire Police Youth Academy.

Seasonal Flu Vaccinations - Children at Risk

Your valued support with the seasonal flu vaccination campaign 2016/17 will help ensure that all eligible children are vaccinated.

This year the nasal spray flu vaccine is being made available for children in health risk groups, and as part of a healthy child programme. These programmes are important for protecting children at risk, but also for reducing flu in the community as a whole, and therefore protecting other people at risk.

Occasionally a virus can change (drift) after a vaccine has been produced. This occurs about once in every 10 years. However having a flu vaccine is still the best way of staying protected.

Please support this campaign by talking to parents about the vaccine, displaying campaign posters and downloading resources which can be found here - warwickshire.gov.uk/flu

Children at Risk

On the advice of the Chief Medical Officer, seasonal flu vaccine is made available to all adults and children with long-term conditions aged between 6 months and 65 years of age. The flu virus can cause serious ill-health in children with long term conditions including:

• Chronic neurological conditions
• Chronic liver problems
• Chronic kidney problems
• A low immune system, due to disease or treatment, or problems with the spleen/no spleen
• Diabetes mellitus
• Chronic respiratory conditions, such as asthma or cystic fibrosis
• Chronic heart disease

We ask you to encourage parents whose children fall into any of the categories outlined above, to be vaccinated. Vaccinations will be available through GPs (or through schools for children in Years 1, 2 and 3). The vaccination for children is a simple nasal spray.

For example, studies have shown that approximately 1.1 million children in the UK suffer with asthma. The child with mild to moderate persistent asthma misses an average of 10 school days per year and the child with severe asthma misses an average of 30 days per year.

It is likely that there is a similar, if not greater, loss of school days due to the other long term conditions. Flu is common and a healthy person will recover in a short time. However, flu carries a higher risk of serious bacterial complications and children and young people with long-term conditions are very vulnerable to the secondary complications of flu. We also know that the lowest uptake of seasonal flu vaccines is in children at-risk in the 2-16 year age group.

Healthy Child Programme

You will also be aware that the nasal spray vaccination is being offered to all 2, 3 and 4 year olds (through their GP), as well as all children in Years 1, 2 and 3 at school (through the school). Over the course of a number of years the government is proposing that all 2 – 16 year olds will be offered a seasonal flu vaccination, to protect themselves, but also to protect those closest to them, who may be more vulnerable to the effects of flu. This is a very important programme, as pilots have shown a reduction in the circulation of flu (and impact on the health system) in areas where primary school age children have been vaccinated.

If you have any queries about the vaccination programme, please contact: nadiainglis@warwickshire.gov.uk

For more information, please see www.warwickshire.gov.uk/flu or www.coventry.gov.uk/flujab

Resources (including presentations for screens and posters) are available to download and print from these websites.

Oral health survey of 5 year olds

Please look out for the oral health survey of 5 year olds coming soon

Oral health surveys involving children are carried out on a regular basis in order to provide information about oral health need. This helps to inform decisions about the provision of dental services and action needed to improve oral health. Recent results have shown a continued increase in the proportion of children with no obvious dental decay but there are still marked inequalities at regional and local authority level.

Over the next few months, dental epidemiology teams will be contacting a number of randomly sampled primary schools across Warwickshire to ask them to participate in the survey.  We would greatly appreciate your support and cooperation in order to ensure a successful survey.

Toothache can cause pain, infection, difficulties with eating, sleeping and socialising and impacts on school readiness and school absence. Extraction of teeth under general anaesthetic remains one of the most common reasons for children to be admitted to hospital, despite tooth decay being a preventable disease. These national surveys provide valuable information to help inform local decisions about tackling oral health issues and we would be very grateful for your support.

It is also worthwhile noting that school attainment and health are closely linked. Children’s health and wellbeing is an important area of Ofsted inspections and working with health providers, including through measuring and screening, can be an important way of demonstrating a focus on pupil health and wellbeing.

For further information about the results of the last oral health survey, please see:

National Dental Epidemiology Programme for England: oral health survey of 5 year old children 2015. A report on the prevalence and severity of dental decay.  

For further information about the survey itself, please contact the:

Special Care Dental Service on (01926) 317778.

Roast Dinner Day: an invitation to Warwickshire schools

The national Roast Dinner Day is coming around again on 2 November and it’s a great opportunity to promote the quality of healthy meals your school provides to children at a time when schools across the country will be doing likewise. The event draws national media attention to the work of schools and the hard efforts of their cooks and midday supervisors.  

Last year, Warwickshire schools participated in very successful Roast Dinner Days to celebrate the quality of school meals and healthy eating. Brownsover and Newton Regis School in particular got major national media coverage on the day.   

Roast Dinner Day in Warwickshire is supported by the Food for Life team commissioned by the Warwickshire County Council Public Health Department.

If you would like to enrol you can either:

1. a)    Send an email saying you want to take part in Roast Dinner to ffl@foodforlife.org.uk
2. b)    Register online by visiting the Food for Life page.

Food for Life’s co-founder Jeanette Orey OBE, the school cook who teamed up with Jamie Oliver in challenging the poor standards of school meals, visited Brownsover and was impressed with their efforts as a silver awarded school now aiming to become the first Food for Life gold award school in the county.

Great prizes to be won

This year’s Roast Dinner Day competition focuses on ‘food miles’ and is all about raising awareness of how many miles the food in your roast dinner has travelled before it reaches the dinner plate. Why not run an assembly on the subject of food miles a or take part in the competition and you could win an aluminium vegetable trug or a set of professional Pro Cook gourmet knives for your school cooks.

You can involve as many children as you like whether in your school nutrition action group or a class. How about a little project investigation into where the ingredients for  your roast dinner came from? The prize is for the best blog on your school’s portal on the Food for Life website which shows how you worked with the school cooks and others in finding out where the food for Roast Dinner Day is coming from. This is regardless of the number of food miles a meal has travelled from the farm to the plate. Try to include graphs, photos, maps to make your blog as interesting and informative as possible including how you found out the answers or best guesstimates.

Your local contacts

If you are interested in participating in ‘Roast Dinner Day’ and would like to see how we could help, please get in touch with:

Bret Willers Warwickshire Food for Life programme manager

bwillers@soilassociation.org

07786 994442

Valerie Meehan Warwickshire Food for Life programme officer

vmeehan@soilassociation.org

07736 888462

The Crunch – free teaching resources for primary and secondary schools

Have you received your box of free equipment from the Wellcome Trust for a science initiative focusing on food called ‘The Crunch’? The Crunch is a national programme that will be delivered through schools, science centres and other networks in association with organisations like Food for Life and the BBC around the UK who will run events in their local areas.

Activities will include:

• Every primary, secondary school and college in the UK will receive a free resource kit containing lesson notes, science equipment and short plays from Easter 2016
• Key science centres across the UK will be facilitating interactive food and drink experiences for families, aiming to reach over 100,000 people. This will be accompanied by a new digital game 'Hungry City'
• 'Chew it over', free interactive workshops for adults combining theatre and in-depth discussion, will tour the country performing and creating provocative new drama based on the opinions and contribution of the audience
• Working with BBC micro:bit The Crunch will ask year seven students to share their behaviours and opinions on food, health and the planet using a pocket-sized codeable computer.

More details can be found at the Wellcome Trust website.

As part of Food for Life’s contribution to the initiative in Warwickshire, Bret Willers, the programme manager for Warwickshire is offering schools enrolled with Food for Life:

• Support and advice to teachers on using the kit and associated activities to promote a greater understanding of food and how it is produced;
• Illustrated presentations and discussions about ethical, environmental and health issues associated with food.

For further details contact Bret Willers at bwillers@soilassociation.org or 07786994442.

An important initiative funded by the Warwickshire Public Health Department to promote the health and wellbeing of children in schools across the county and to provide an important contribution to raising educational attainment.

CAMHS Procurement