Schoolsnet Bulletin Board

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

To support schools with developing and teaching great RE, Glos Standing Advisory Council on RE (SACRE) and RE Today are making two free online sessions available to local primary schools.

Each year Gloucestershire participates in the International 16 days of action against gender-based violence; starting on the 25th November (International day for the elimination of violence against women) and ending on 10th December (Human rights day).

For 2020, Gloucestershire will be raising awareness of domestic abuse amongst young people and child to parent violence.

Gloucestershire Music are thrilled to announce the launch of their Online Ensemble Sessions. There are a variety of sessions covering all ranges of abilities and are open to any children in Gloucestershire who play a musical instrument. We are also running separate adult groups.

Children who have been looked after by an English or Welsh local authority immediately before being adopted, or who left local authority care on a special guardianship order or child arrangements order (previously known as a residence order) have been allocated £2345 in funding if in Years Reception to Y11.

Glen Cleaning issued correspondence last week relating to the use of agency staff.

From Monday, schools will be able to start accessing support from NTP Tuition Partners (selected by the EEF) and the first cohort of Academic Mentors (trained by Teach First) will begin working in schools.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached below (updated from 26.10.20)

As all children return to educational settings in the context of COVID-19, we are anticipating an increase in demand from practitioners in the community who have safeguarding concerns about a child. We want to make it simpler for practitioners to get the right support, at the right time, from the right service.

Access to the GSCE e-learning courses for those schools/settings that do not buy into Traded Services for Safeguarding in Education from 31^st October 2020 will cease to be provided free of charge.

We are very proud to announce the launch of Gloucestershire County Council’s new virtual training and communities’ platform; GCCPlusTraining.org

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education (dated from 19.10.20) are attached.

If shared play resources (sand, water, playdough, plasticine etc.) are used, the following measures below should mitigate the risks.

The government has at very short noticed signed into law regulations to restrict the value of redundancy and pension payments to employees leaving on grounds of redundancy or voluntary severance on or after 4^th November 2020. It is essential that these regulations are applied to any employee in these categories with a leaving date on or after 4^th November.

The following checklist is to be used on receiving notification of a positive case(s) of Covid-19 within a school setting, either amongst staff and/or students.

Further to the implementation of the Welsh firebreak this week, Welsh residents can still travel to work in England if they cannot work from home, including all school staff.

On Friday 16 October, the Government updated the guidance on the use of face coverings for schools and other education institutions that teach people in years seven and above in England to align the guidance with the local Covid alert level framework.

This guide offers an overview of relevant evidence and links to key resources, with the aim of helping teachers and senior leaders support their pupils following the Covid-19 closure of schools to most pupils. It is designed in particular to support and inform decisions about how to use the £650 million 'catch up' funding.

Following serious concern over a number of teenage suicides, you will remember that in recent years the Gloucestershire Safeguarding Children Executive and Suicide Prevention Group have sent out stickers for pupils to put in planners. The labels have been updated for 2020 and you will now see that included  are signposts to both Hope House, Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) and Gloucestershire Rape and Sexual Abuse Support.  This is linked to 3 recent Rapid Reviews undertaken by the Safeguarding Partnership.

A reminder to all schools that every parent should be kept apprised of school information and provided with access to educational records related to their child(ren).  This is particularly the case where the school is aware that a parent is not resident at the child’s registered home.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education (dated from 12.10.20) are attached.

The FAQs for primary schools have been updated from the last issue on 29.9.20.

Changing rooms can be an area of increased risk of transmission because of their size and frequency of use by multiple bubbles.  Where possible the advice is to avoid using shared changing rooms. 

Side effects to the flu vaccine should be mild and only last for a day or so.  They may include a slightly raised temperature but this would be different to Covid-19 symptoms. With Covid-19, there would be a high temperature and the child would feel noticeably hot to touch on their chest or back. 

Following DfE changes to educational setting status forms, we will now be able to access the centrally held information on the number of children absent for Covid related reasons.  It will, therefore, no longer be a requirement to send copies of the returns into the education data hub or the X coded template (this was previously needed from schools that do not regularly share their B2B data).

This autumn BBC Radio Gloucestershire is inviting schools, organisations, families and individuals to join them to grow 2,020 trees from seed.

The SkillZONE team have produced a short video for young children about keeping safe on bonfire night.

Schools are advised to continue to track their exceptional costs associated with coronavirus COVID-19.

The  DfE has published a new headteachers’ standards document.

In light of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic and the need to keep all schools and early years providers up to date on the latest information, advice and guidance (IAG) being issued, Sarah Poultney sarah.poultney@gloucestershire.gov.uk has taken the role of Education COVID Communications Lead for a temporary period.

Kooth can provide free online training sessions for staff teams who plan to roll out Kooth to their students.

The Youth Support Team will be providing FREE daily sessions during half term to  help alleviate the hunger gap that some young people will experience during half term.

The following presentation has been produced by the Department for Education to address frequently asked questions on testing for schools.

To support schools with developing and teaching great RE, Glos Standing Advisory Council on RE (SACRE) and RE Today are making two free online sessions available to local primary schools.

COVID-19 is requiring Children’s Services to balance the duty to safeguard children with appropriate measures to minimise the spread of the virus as informed by national guidance.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached (updated from 5.10.20)

The Model Pay Policy is now available on Schoolsnet. The policy has been updated in line with the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document 2020 -2021.

Newly qualified teachers who have started induction this term are currently being logged on ‘NQT Module’, an automated system, which is linked to GCC Plus. 

Flexi-schooling denotes a child’s attendance will be divided between time at school and time at home. When parents/carers request this arrangement, they are asking for a pattern of provision that involves attendance at school together with times when educational provision will be provided at home.

Schools are able to use any of the scrolling images/videos (re COVID-19) that are on the GCC twitter feed for digital signage (in school/on website).

Ofsted resumed visits to schools from the beginning of September. Findings from these visits have been recently published.

The list of critical workers (key workers) who can send their children to school or other educational settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak was updated by the Department for Education on 28.9.20.

Sports are allowed in school where national governing bodies have developed guidance that has been approved by the government.  This includes all common sports in schools. 

The Department for Education delivered webinars for school leaders last week.

The webinars were not uploaded to the DfE YouTube Channel immediately but are now available.

October is Black History Month and colleagues from REACH, one of the affinity groups within GCHQ, has produced some resources that they have asked to be shared with local schools.

Ofsted plan to carry out more than 1,000 visits to schools during this term, to check on how pupils are being supported in their return to full-time education following the disruption caused by Covid-19.

The visits are not inspections and will not result in a graded judgement. However, Ofsted has said previously that these new visits can be converted into an inspection if it has major concerns about safeguarding or leadership.

We are seeking views on changing the relevant area for Gloucestershire. (i.e. the minimum area to be consulted when all schools and academies undertake consultations on proposed admission arrangements).

To ensure schools do not miss out on vital communications from the council, they need to inform us when changes to email addresses occur – for example when there is a change of Headteacher or a school converts to an academy.

This year’s Section 175/157 annual survey will be launched early December 2020 with a completion date of February 2021.

The NSPCC have newly-launched online assemblies and resources, so that Gloucestershire’s primary schools can still access the NSPCC’s Speak out. Stay safe programme during the covid-19 pandemic. We’d love all Gloucestershire settings with primary-age pupils to take part, so that children can still receive the important safeguarding messages even while the NSPCC are not able to visit in person.