Schoolsnet Bulletin Board

The Virtual School has produced a newsletter which shares good practice, training and news regarding supporting previously looked after children.

The Education Skills & Funding Agency has announced that the coronavirus (COVID-19) workforce fund for schools and colleges online form is now live.

Occupational Health and GHLL continue to work together to raise awareness on mental health and emotional wellbeing in schools and colleges in Gloucestershire.

Please see below message from Chris Spencer, Director of Children's Services.

An updated Covid-19 risk assessment is attached.

LA advice on how schools should proceed with regard to children not attending at this current time can be seen here. This takes into account the latest guidance from the Department of Health and Social Care along with Public Health England and gives advice regarding Education settings and those who are clinically extremely vulnerable.  

Ofsted has published new information on how remote education is working for children and young people with SEND. Their findings are taken from the autumn and spring term interim visits.

The expectation is that most staff, pupils, and students will already have access to face coverings from their wider use in society. However, it is recommended that all settings have a small contingency stock of face coverings available if an individual is struggling to access a face covering, or has damaged/forgotten their own.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached.

Please find attached the latest version of the Schools' Flow Chart.

Join us for Gloucestershire’s first youth-led music conference – bringing together music educators, industry professionals and young people with a stake in the future of music in Gloucestershire to look at how we can make music inclusive to ALL.

The 2021/22 Primary, Secondary and Special Schools Budgets are now available to view on Schoolsnet.

An extension to the deadline has been given and the deadline for SFVS return is now 31^st May 2021.  Schools submitting their SFVS after 31^st March 2021 should continue to use their CFR data from Financial year 19/20.

The Education Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has launched a consultation to seeking views on proposed initial changes to the High Needs National Funding Formula (NFF) as part of a longer term review of the NFF. The local authority is preparing a response and as part of this will run a webinar for school leaders and other interested parties to contribute to it.

Following the government announcements on Monday, further advice will be issued by the end of the week to reflect FAQs on the newly issued guidance here.

The Education Outcomes and Intervention team has gathered together video clips, resources and links on a variety of approaches Gloucestershire schools are using to support children and young people during the Covid pandemic and beyond. This includes ‘How to…’ guides and tips for making the best use of digital resources.

Please see below guidance from the Education Skills Funding Agency regarding the teacher pay and pension grant. For schools with a maintained nursery provision or a sixth form, please note that there is still a separate provision that you need to access.

The deadline for nominations has now closed (5:00pm on Friday 12 February 2021). The attached document sets out where individuals have been elected unopposed, and where an election is now required.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached (updated from 8.2.21).

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) offers a CAMHS Practitioner Advice Line where they can support all professionals working with children. Practitioners can call the CAMHS Practitioner Advice Line on 01452 894272 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays

Following the sad death of a young person with a diagnosis of TB in Gloucestershire, the Child Death Overview Panel have created the attached flowchart. 

The Department for Education has confirmed that the pupil allocations will be based on the October census beyond the financial year 2021/22.

The DfE has issued revised guidance today.

GCC’s Occupational Health team have produced the attached flyer about how staff can look after their mental wellbeing while working or teaching from home.

The attached risk assessment template for lateral flow testing in primary schools can be used as an appendix to the school full risk assessment. The template is editable and can be adapted to individual circumstances.

The attached letter asking all schools to sign up to a new Data Sharing Agreement was sent out at the end of September, so that we can continue to share vital data and information in a secure way.

The attached briefing note provides advice and guidance for local schools in relation to Children’s Services and provides updated contact details for Children’s Social Care, Early Help and Targeted Support Services.

We would like to reassure schools that existing service and hamper provision from Caterlink is not currently affected by the introduction of the Edenred voucher scheme. Please contact Caterlink direct re the ongoing ordering of hampers.

Please see here for the most recent SEND guidance issued on 18^th January 2021. Having interpreted the guidance we have set out key headlines on this and how we are asking you to work with us to deliver provision as set out in the plan as there have been no current changes to legal requirement to deliver to the plan.  We have been informed this will be kept under review and will advise should this position change and legal dispensations are applied.

The government announced yesterday that serial testing of close contacts within secondary and special school settings should temporarily pause. 

The Team Around the Locality Cluster (TALC) will be continuing to support schools during this challenging period of the current lockdown. This will ensure we can continue to support and meet the needs of children and young people and that they continue to have access to education.

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2020 was updated this week with changes substantially to recruitment as a result of Brexit.

Following confirmation of the cancellation of 2021 national curriculum assessments, the STA has confirmed future dates for primary assessment.

Community Resilience and Secondary Trauma: Maintaining well being in the workforce Webinar

10 March 2021, 09:30 - 11:00

Community Resilience and Connected Relationships: Building Compassionate Communities

9 March 2021, 09:30 - 11:30

The Department for Education has addressed commonly asked questions on the National Voucher Scheme and lunch parcels here.

Anyone who is pregnant or has a child under 4 and is in receipt of benefits can now get free vitamins as part of the Healthy Start voucher scheme in Gloucestershire. You will also qualify if you are under 18 and pregnant, even if you aren’t in receipt of benefits.

The Gloucestershire Virtual School has devised a toolkit which may be useful to consider for your schools and academies.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached.

A recording of the webinar is now available at the following link:  https://youtu.be/XwEf5E0tLMI .

The Schools Forum biennial elections will commence Friday 15 January 2021. Half of the Schools Forum schools and academies members’ term of office ends on 31 March 2021. 

Further to the Q&A webinar on LFD testing on January 12^th, a recording is available here for those who were unable to attend.

We can confirm that primary schools and maintained nursery schools should expect to receive a delivery of home testing kits between the 18 and 22 January for testing of staff. Further support and guidance on how to use the tests will follow shortly from the DfE. You do not need to start any testing before the week commencing 25 January.

Revised guidance was issued on 14.1.21 for special and alternative provision schools for use during the current national lockdown. It can be found here

The attached guidance, on safeguarding children whilst they learn remotely, is being republished for use during the current lockdown.

Schools should be receiving invitations to participate in a pilot to investigate the potential of automating the flow of attendance data directly from school management information systems to the Department for Education.

In order to ensure that there are clear communications between schools and the Local Authority during the third Lockdown period, we have put in place arrangements as detailed below.

Schools have been requested to submit the educational settings status report to the DfE by 2pm each day and instructions can be found here.  If your setting is closed, you’ll still need to complete the form every day so that the DfE is aware of the closure.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached.

Following the success of previous years’ CPD programme we are running a similar programme this year, built around the Teachers’ Standards, supporting NQTs in their induction year. The initial events will run ‘virtually’.