Schoolsnet Bulletin Board

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached (updated from 10.08.21).

Peer-on peer abuse can take various forms and include serious bullying, relationship abuse, domestic violence, child sexual exploitation, harmful sexual behaviour, and/or gender based violence. As part of the on-going work being undertaken by the Peer-on-Peer Working Party with representation from GAPH, GASH, GASSH and FE, the group has produced an information leaflet for staff. 

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached (updated from 27.07.21).

On 6 August the government announced that over 120 UK universities, as well as schools and further education colleges, will be awarded grants from the £110 million Turing Scheme.

Please find attached a revised Education Outcomes and Intervention (EOI) Structure Chart with new Head of School Improvement, Clare Dudman.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached (updated from 21.7.21).

We have recently received reports of a lining contractor asking schools if they want their road markings/parking bays refreshed while the company is in the area.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached (updated from 14.07.21).

Please find attached the Access to Resource Booklet for Children and Families.

Please see below a message from Nicola Hopper, Education Advisor, Previously Looked After Children, Gloucestershire County Council.

Please see below updated guidance.

Find out about the grant funding and training schools and colleges can get to help develop a whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing.

Connexions2Independence (C2I) plan to run a playscheme for disabled children and young people during the coming school holidays. Unfortunately their proposed venue is no longer available.

GCC catering charges for UIFSM (Universal Free School Meals) have always been calculated using the same data and methodology that the ESFA use to allocate the grant to schools. This year the GCC catering charge was calculated using the same methodology as previous years, however due to potential discrepancies in some schools data on the January census the ESFA have, this year, made an adjustment to how the UIFSM income was calculated.

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The Spring Bank Holiday in 2022 will be moved to Thursday 2 June and an additional Bank Holiday on Friday 3 June will see a four-day weekend to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The government has laid regulations to reduce the minimum number of sessions schools are required to meet in the academic year 2021 to 2022. 

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached (updated from 07.07.21)

Trafficking and Modern Slavery are forms of child abuse and are a serious violation of human rights. This abuse can happen anywhere and the number of victims identified in the UK has grown each year since 2015.

Sign up for the Holiday Activity and Food (HAF) programme is now open.  Families can now book activities taking place across August from the 2^nd to the 27^th.

The Department of Education (DfE) has updated the guidance on choosing a phonics teaching programme and added the new list of validated systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programmes.’ The guidance includes details of a ‘supportive package of measures, designed to support schools in providing great reading provision and developing pupils’ proficiency in, and love of, reading’.

The Gloucestershire Safeguarding in Education Team (GSEP) will be rolling out training to Headteachers in relation to the Single Central Record.

The aim of these free 1 hour sessions is for you to update your knowledge on what belongs on your school's single central record (SCR).

As the summer break is fast approaching Gloucestershire Constabulary has helpfully put together some key guidance for parents and professionals.

The NCETM (National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics) has published the first unit for each year group (Y1-Y6) of its Curriculum Prioritisation in Primary Maths materials, a term-by-term framework to support planning and teaching in 2021/22. ‘This resource provides coherent sequencing for the primary maths curriculum. It draws together the DfE guidance on curriculum prioritisation, with high quality professional development and classroom resources provided by the NCETM Primary Mastery PD materials.’

Following government announcements this week and a move to Stage 4 of the Roadmap, the operational guidance for schools has been updated here. Step 4 changes currently apply from 19^th July, subject to review on 12^th July.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached (updated from 28.6.21).

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2021 was published this week. As part of Gloucestershire Safeguarding Children Partnership’s on-going commitment to Gloucestershire Schools through traded services, we are pleased to announce there will be short webinar to go through the changes and what action you now need to take.

Occupational Health services and the free Employee Assistance Programme are available to use over the summer holidays.

Please see below a message from Phil Haslett, Head of Education Strategy and Development.

Gloucestershire Healthy Living and Learning (GHLL) would like to highlight the work that the Personal, Social and Health Education  (PSHE) Association in conjunction with colleagues at the research agency are working on ‘Revealing Reality’. They are seeking Year 11/12/13 students to respond to an anonymous online survey about their attitudes and experiences surrounding image sharing (the sharing of nude or nearly nude pictures or videos), to help explore the impact of this practice on young people).

Books Beyond Words are award-winning wordless picture stories, covering themes such as physical and mental health, life skills, relationships, abuse, trauma, grief and bereavement. They also provide the Open Book webinar series this carefully curated series of six free webinars covers a range of challenges that schools are currently facing.

There is now an updated CSE Screening Tool which incorporates both Criminal and Sexual Exploitation. Please can head teachers share this information with all staff so they know what to do should they have concerns.

GCC has a database that will track and monitor the attendance of all children and young people at out of school provision and targeted commissioned provision over all holiday periods

This summer, Gloucestershire County Council is running two schemes for children eligible for Free School Meals.

We recognise that many teaching staff tend to keep their mobile phones in lockers, staffrooms and offices during the school day. In these cases, we advise schools that staff should turn off/pause the Track & Trace App whilst they are in school to mitigate notifications of false close contacts. Schools are managing Covid secure sites and have their own internal systems for identifying close contacts.  

Ofsted has recently updated handbooks for all sectors. The school and early years handbooks and summaries of the changes made can be found at these links:

School inspection handbook

Early years inspection handbook

As the Gloucestershire Virtual School Games Day approaches, we want 50,000 children active and taking part in Gloucestershire's biggest ever virtual physical activity event. There are loads of fun activities lined up such as live Bhangra, desk drumming, the Daily Mile, yoga, inclusive fitness, 1500m Olympic record attempts and much, much more.

The latest version of the Covid-19 Response Checklist is attached.

A reminder for schools to post details of Covid-19 cases on the School Emergency closure site. This information will allow support services such as catering and transport to keep up to date with any changes.

We would like to ensure that the messages to Headteachers about Elective Home Education align with the messages that have recently been communicated to school staff who attended the Attendance Network Meetings. It is important that the processes around Elective Home Education are clear as numbers are increasing.  Please read on for essential information.

Details and links to the key communications from the Department for Education are attached (updated from 21.06.21).

Dr Alison Struthers of Warwick University and Dr Ruth Brittle of Nottingham Trent University are hoping to gather data from teachers, including Designated Safeguarding Leads, on human rights and safeguarding, and have produced two short surveys to do this. 

Working in partnership with schools, the Alternative Provision project aims to reduce the number of children and young people being permanently excluded. It aims to transform the way in which alternative provision is provided, to make sure vulnerable children and young people receive timely support of the highest quality.

Health and safety in a school is about taking a sensible and proportionate approach to ensure a healthy and safe place for the school workforce, visitors and pupils.

The Covid-19 Local support grant has now been extended; applications are now open until September 30th at 5pm. The grant can help with the cost of food, household bills and other household essentials.

In response to rising infection rates across the county and the increasing pressure schools are experiencing around holding events in the summer term,  the attached letter has been drafted to parents/carers to support schools’ decision making. The letter has been prepared for schools to share with their communities and has been signed by Sarah Scott, Executive Director of Adult Social Care and Public Health and Chris Spencer, Director of Children’s Services.

The Schools Forum Outcome report from the meeting held on 17 June 2021 is available here.

NELI is a school-based programme for children in Reception (4-5 years) which has been found to improve children’s language and early literacy skills. This programme is funded by the Department for Education.

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 2021 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 three recent Rapid Reviews undertaken by the Safeguarding Partnership.

The South West Regional Cyber Crime Unit (SWRCCU) in collaboration with the South West Cyber Resilience Centre (SWCRC) are inviting educational establishments from the South West region (Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire) to join them on 13^th July 2021 at 10am for this free cyber briefing on the threat of ransomware to the education sector.

The Gloucestershire Safeguarding Children Partnership is pleased to be able to offer a short 30 minute e-learning course on Unconscious Bias.

This South West Child protection Record Transfer Protocol has been agreed by all those attendees of the South West Education Group and adopted by the Gloucestershire Education and Early Years Sub Group of the partnership.