Education Noticeboard 12 September 2024

Welcome to the Education Noticeboard. A round-up of news, guidance and key updates for education settings.

Included in this Edition of the Noticeboard

Director Update

An update from Simon Wellman

Hi all,

I suspect you are now back into the swing of things given we are well over a week into the Autumn term!

There is a full noticeboard this week with lots of information that you will find useful as we progress through the term. Included is the School Admission guidance which has been published today. Many thanks in advance of you help to promote the key dates when parents apply for their child’s school place. To remind it is 31st October 2024 for year 7 secondary school placements and all children with an EHCP. It is 15th January for Reception and year 3 Junior School placements (non EHCP).

I also ask for your help regarding an audit of children in care in our school settings. As a Local Authority we continue to develop approaches to fair share for pupils with a range of additional needs, which includes careful tracking of all children in care to Telford & Wrekin, as well as those in care who are admitted to a different Local Authority. Therefore, could you please complete the Microsoft Form (via the link below) to let us know the numbers of children in care within your school or setting.

I must also mention that HHAH is now open for Winter registration so please promote this to eligible children.

Finally, well done to Randlay Primary for becoming our latest School of Sanctuary, further detail is included below.

Best Wishes

Simon

Simon Wellman Director: Education & Skills

NEWS

School of Sanctuary

Congratulations to Randlay Primary school, our latest school of Sanctuary!

On Friday 6th September, the children, governors and staff welcomed Randlay Parish Councillor Chair, Mrs S Unwin and visitors to their school to witness Headteacher Lynda Stolic and EAL Lead Sophie Watton receive the School of Sanctuary award. Robert Douglas presented the award from Shropshire Supports Refugees in recognition of their hard work in ensuring they are truly a School of Sanctuary.

The school have worked hard on ensuring their curriculum embeds Equality and Diversity, has a strong focus on British Values and ensures all children feel welcome, safe and have a true love for learning at their school. Children told visitors about how they felt proud of their school. The pupils read out speeches and shared their feelings and experiences of coming to the UK and joining Randlay primary. The children shared their work and their own experiences of learning about Equality and Diversity, Sanctuary and Welcome. It was clear to see how much the award meant to all.

For more information on becoming a school of sanctuary please visit:

https://schools.cityofsanctuary.org/ or contact the MDT team.

Kirsty Holden and Qamar Maqsood

Multicultural.Development@telford.gov.uk

Attendance

In the ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance’. Aug 2024, the DfE have introduced ‘Sickness returns’

From September 2024 schools have a duty to inform the LA of any child who is recorded with code I and who the school has reasonable grounds to believe will miss 15 days consecutively or cumulatively because of sickness.

DfE - Working together to Improve School Attendance – August 2024

40. Sickness returns: providing the local authority with the full name and address of all pupils of compulsory school age who have been recorded with code I (illness) and who the school has reasonable grounds to believe will miss 15 days consecutively or cumulatively because of sickness. Only one sickness return is required for a continuous period of sickness in a school year. This is to help the school and local authority to agree any provision needed to ensure continuity of education for pupils who cannot attend because of health needs, in line with the statutory guidance on arranging education for children who cannot attend school because of health needs.

Schools will need to use the SAM Portal on Synergy to report sickness returns.

Synergy has functionality to receive forms from schools electronically so we will be asking all schools to use the School Access Module (SAM) Portal (link below) to complete and send in AST Referral. Referrals will no longer be accepted via email.

SAM Portal:

This is the link to the SAM Portal: https://education.telford.gov.uk/live/SynergyWeb/schools

Existing SAM Portal Users:

If you already have an account on the SAM Portal to complete FAP and Student Engagement Referrals you will be able to complete an AST Referral in the same way and will not need your account to be updated.

If you already have an account on the SAM Portal in respect of Admissions only, and will also need to use the Portal to AST Referrals, you will need to have you permissions updated. Please either email educationsystemssupport@telford.gov.uk or log a call with IDT Self Service, with the SAM Portal New User Form attached for this to be set up. Once set up, the SAM Portal should look like this (new “Online Forms” button):

New SAM Portal Users:

If you are going to need access to the SAM Portal, please either email educationsystemssupport@telford.gov.uk or log a call with IDT Self Service, with the SAM Portal New User Form attached for this to be set up.

Please do not click the “Create Account” button

There is also a user guide for the SAM Portal should you need any further support.

SAM Portal User Guide

Education for children with health needs who cannot attend school - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Working together to improve school attendance

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/attendance-hubs

Major national drive to improve school attendance

Telford and Wrekin guide to the new register codes

School Admissions – Starting Reception, Junior or Year 7 in September 2025

How to apply for Reception, Junior and Secondary School places in readiness for September 2025

Secondary 25/26 Applications

The online application form for children who are due to start Secondary School In September 2025 will be available on the Telford & Wrekin website from 9th September 2024.

Reception & Junior Applications

For Reception or those transferring from Infant to Junior (Year 3) in September 2025, applications will be available via the Telford & Wrekin website from 12th September 2024.

All parents will need to apply via our parent portal.

Please note:

Parents will need to make an application to the Local Authority of where they are living, this is where they pay Council Tax to, even if they want to apply for a school in another LA area.
If a child is attending a school based nursery, they still need to apply for a school place.

Parents can include up to 4 preferences on their application and we recommend that they do this, and include their catchment/nearest school.

The deadlines are as follows:

Secondary 31st October 2024
Reception – 15th January 2025
Junior – 15th January 2025

If a child has an Education, Health and Care Plan the closing date is 31st October 2024 for all applications.

More information around school allocations and oversubscription criteria is available on the Telford & Wrekin website.

The school admissions website page also contains lots of additional information around school admissions.

Letters to parents/guardians are provided below. Please download and distribute as appropriate.

Infant to junior transfer to parents for 2025 intake

Junior to Secondary transfer to parents for 2025 intake

Starting school apply online now

We also include our starting school poster and we would be grateful if schools/nurseries could display in accessible areas for parents; it would also be helpful if you could include this in any newsletters that you send out to parents between now and the closing date.

If a customer is having problems with the submitting the application please signpost them to the School Admissions Team at admissions@telford.gov.uk

Fair Access Panels Protocols

Fair Access Panel Protocols 2024

The Fair Access Panel Protocols have been updated to reflect changes agreed at the Fair Access Panel meetings in July.

Please find below the updated Primary and Secondary Fair Access Protocols for operation from September 2024.

These have been discussed at the Fair Access Panel meetings in July and the revised protocols agreed in September 2024. The changes reflect the agreed modifications to the operation of the protocol, these changes have been highlighted in yellow.

I would like to add my thanks for the rich discussions at both panel meetings that have allowed us to make these changes and help us to achieve the main aims of support young people back into schools as quickly as possible whilst ensuring that no school is adversely affected by taking too many hard to place young people.

Primary Fair Access Panels (FAP) Protocol September 2024

Secondary Fair Access Panels (FAP) Protocol September 24

Children in Care in Schools across Telford and Wrekin 2024/25

Data Collection of CIC to other LA's

As a Local Authority we are developing approaches to Fair Share for pupils with a range of additional needs.

Part of this is the careful tracking of all children in care to Telford & Wrekin, as well as those in care who are admitted to a different Local Authority.

Therefore, could you please complete the Microsoft Form (via the link below) to let us know the numbers of children in care within your school or setting.

Data collection of CiC to other LA’s

Please respond by the end of day on Friday 20th September 2024.

Your help with this process is much appreciated.

Leadership Conference

Annual Leadership Conference for Headteachers, Principals and CEO’s in Telford & Wrekin

An exciting opportunity to book your place for this pivotal and unmissable event, taking place Wednesday 23 October 2024

The Annual Leadership Conference for Telford & Wrekin Headteachers, Principals and CEO’s is taking place Wednesday 23 October 2024 from 8.45am to 1pm, including lunch.

The conference will provide a first opportunity to share data on the performance of our schools across the borough, comparing to regional and national data, looking at trends over time and identifying hot issues. The presentation will include school performance data, SEND, CiC, Fairshare, attendance, exclusions and suspensions and will help to focus strategic networking discussions on the range of issues challenging our schools.

We are also delighted to announce details of our two key note speakers – Darren Edwards, record-breaking Disabled Adventurer, Inspirational Speaker and Author – and Malcolm Reeve, National Leader of Education and Chair of the Programme Board for Whole School SEND.

Please see the attached flyer for further information about our key note speakers.

The delegate fee for this event remains unchanged from 2023 at £60 per person, with a discounted offer of £100 for two delegates from the same school, including lunch. This event has been priced competitively to simply cover costs and to hopefully maximise attendance from all of our schools.

The Partnership Board is delighted to welcome all Headteachers, Principals and CEOs to this event. There is also some space for Deputy Heads to attend too, but we ask that they only attend alongside their Headteacher, and not as a replacement.

To secure your place/s please send a completed CPD booking form to cpdschoolimprovement@telford.gov.uk as soon as possible.

Early Years

Health Protection Hub - Infection Control Information for Schools

With the return to school for the autumn term, and in anticipation of the customary outbreaks of respiratory illnesses, D&V and other childhood illnesses when the children all get back together, we felt it timely to provide you with information on the infection control measures and resources at your disposal.

We’ve already received queries from educational settings about Mpox (monkeypox) given the publicity about the new strain in Africa. The risk at this point is low (especially from the new variant). Anyone returning from an affected country should be vigilant for symptoms for 3 weeks after return. If they do develop symptoms they should go home, call 111 and let their staff know the travel history. Please let us in the Hub know. The NHS website has more information on symptoms: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/mpox/

National and T&W guidance on COVID-19 has remained unchanged.

As always, feel free to contact us at the Health Protection Hub at: HealthProtectionHub@telford.gov.uk or call 019542 381800 if you need any information or advice.

Advice for parents

You may wish to share the text below with parents:

We’ve been asked by the Health Protection Hub to share some information with you on health-related issues – when your child should and shouldn’t attend school and how best to keep them healthy.

The NHS has some good information for you to looks at here: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/

It's fine to send your child to school or nursery with a minor cough or common cold if they are otherwise well and do not have a high temperature. But if your child has a fever, they should stay home from school or nursery until they feel better, and the fever has resolved.

If they have diarrhoea and/or vomiting, they should stay home for at least 48 hours after the last episode.

It is no longer recommended that children and young people are routinely tested for COVID-19 unless directed to by a health professional. But if your child has tested positive for COVID-19, they should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 3 days after the day they took the test. Children and young people who usually go to school, college or childcare and who live with someone who has a positive COVID-19 test result should continue to attend as normal.

Vaccines provide the best protection against many common but potentially serious illnesses. Over the past decade, fewer children are getting routine vaccines, putting them at risk of serious disease. This leaves schools vulnerable to outbreaks and increases pressure on the NHS. If your child is up to date with their NHS vaccination schedule, they will already be protected against diseases like whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella throughout their school career, as most provide lifelong immunity. Unvaccinated children are at higher risk of contracting these illnesses and having more severe symptoms than vaccinated classmates. They can also spread diseases to others. Check your child’s red book or contact your GP surgery to ensure they are up to date on all vaccines.

Good hygiene also stops infections from spreading, which means less disrupted learning time. You can help by teaching your child to wash hands properly for 20 seconds, use tissues for coughs and sneezes, and stay away from others when sick. Letting in fresh air can also reduce the spread of airborne viruses.

How to prevent/mitigate against infections

Exclusions

Prompt exclusion of children, young people and staff who are unwell with an infectious disease is essential to preventing the spread of infection in education and childhood settings.

Children with mild, respiratory symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat, or slight cough, who are otherwise well, can continue to attend their education or childcare setting.

Children who are unwell and showing the symptoms of an infectious disease or a diagnostic result should be advised to stay away from their education or childcare setting for the minimum period recommended in the Exclusions table

Some people will still have access to tests for COVID-19; if they do test positive the exclusion periods are 3 days from date of test for children and 5 days for adults (over 18), providing the person is well enough and does not have a raised temperature. They should also avoid contact with people at higher risk of becoming seriously unwell from COVID-19, especially those whose immune system means that they are at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19, despite vaccination, for 10 days after the day they took their test.

Feel free to contact the Hub on the email below if you need any advice in specific situations.

Ventilation

Letting fresh air into indoor spaces can help remove air that contains virus particles and prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory infections.

If there are areas of the setting identified that may have poor ventilation, there are several simple things that can be done to improve ventilation.

These include:

partially opening windows and doors to let fresh air in
opening higher level windows to reduce draughts
opening windows for 10 minutes an hour or longer can help increase ventilation – where possible this can happen when the room is empty in between lessons, for example

You should always balance the need for increased ventilation while maintaining a comfortable temperature.

Handwashing

Hand washing is one of the most important ways of controlling the spread of infections, especially those that cause diarrhoea and/or vomiting and respiratory infections.

Settings should ensure that staff and students/children have access to liquid soap, warm water and paper towels. Bar soap should not be used.

All staff and pupils should be advised to wash their hands after using the toilet, before eating or handling food, after playtime and after touching animals.

All cuts and abrasions should be covered with a waterproof dressing.

Alcohol hand gel can be used if appropriate hand washing facilities are not available but should not replace washing hands particularly if hands are visibly soiled or where there are cases of gastroenteritis (diarrhoea and vomiting) in the setting. Alcohol hand gel is not effective against norovirus.

Cleaning

Effective cleaning and disinfection are critical in any education or childcare setting, particularly when food preparation is taking place.

In the event of an outbreak of infection at your setting, we would recommend enhanced and more frequent cleaning, to help reduce transmission - for example twice daily cleaning of areas (with particular attention to door handles, toilet flushes and taps) and communal areas where surfaces can easily become contaminated such as handrails, with hot, soapy water and an appropriate disinfectant. Milton is recommended especially when you have outbreaks of D&V, used in accordance with the instructions.

Dedicated cleaning equipment should be colour coded according to area of use.

Respiratory hygiene

Covering the nose and mouth during sneezing and coughing can reduce the spread of infections.

Spitting should be discouraged.

Anyone with signs and symptoms of a respiratory infection, regardless of the cause, should follow respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette, specifically:

cover nose and mouth with a tissue when coughing and sneezing, and dispose of used tissue in non-healthcare risk waste bin and perform hand hygiene
cough or sneeze into the inner elbow (upper sleeve) if no tissues are available, rather than into the hand
keep contaminated hands away from the mucous membranes of the eyes and nose
carry out hand hygiene after contact with respiratory secretions and contaminated objects and materials

Dealing with soiled clothing

Staff dealing with soiled clothing should ensure that:

manual sluicing of clothing is not carried out as there is a risk of inhaling fine contaminated aerosol droplets; soiled articles of clothing should be rinsed through in the washing machine pre-wash cycle, prior to washing
gloves and aprons should be worn when handling soiled linen or clothing
hands should be thoroughly washed after removing the gloves and aprons

Clothing may become contaminated with blood or bodily fluids. If this occurs, clothing should be removed as soon as possible and placed in a plastic bag. It should be sent home with the child with advice for the parent on how to launder the contaminated clothing -any contaminated clothing should be washed separately in a washing machine, using a pre-wash cycle, on the hottest temperature that the clothes will tolerate.

Childhood Immunisations

Here are links to guides on what immunisations children should’ve had at various ages, which you may wish to share with parents:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/routine-childhood-immunisation-schedule/routine-childhood-immunisations-from-february-2022-born-on-or-after-1-january-2020

A guide to share with migrant families, noting that vaccination is free in the UK:

Moved to the UK: Get up-to-date with your vaccinations_2019206_English (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Resources

The best overall resource is Health protection in education and childcare settings

This has chapters on introduction to infections, infection prevention and control, public health management of specific infectious diseases, action in the event of an outbreak or incident, immunisation, educational visits and an exclusion table.

If you require any specific advice, or to advise us of an outbreak, please email HealthProtectionHub@telford.gov.uk and we’ll provide advice and assistance.

Schools Health Protection update September 2024

HHAH

Happy Healthy Active Holidays Summer Recap

That’s a wrap!! What a Summer of fun we have had!

More fun to come for Christmas 2024.

From day trips to animal encounters, to disco’s to famous footballer coaching sessions. We have had a blast delivering for summer this year.

We are open for child registrations for our winter programme and keep your eyes peeled for updates to the winter programme 😊.

Please go to https://hhah.telford.gov.uk/ to register for HHAH.

Eligibility Criteria:

Reception – Year 11 benefit related FSM Children

SEND Children

Referral in by schools/services for vulnerable/at risk students or families identified that may benefit from the scheme.

If there is a child/children that you feel would benefit from this scheme who doesn’t qualify for FSM but can be included as part of the 15% allocated funding (see attached for criteria) for our vulnerable and deprivation areas, please provide us with their details to the holidayactivityhub@telford.gov.uk email using Code SUMMER23

Outdoor Education

Outdoor learning and Forest School leaders

Sharing Good Practice Fun and Support Sessions

24th September 3.30pm.-5.00pm

A final reminder about our upcoming opportunity to join likeminded people to explore new sites, ideas, share good practice, renew skills and eat cake! Networking is an essential form of support in a world that can be isolating.

It is a safe place to explore good ideas and ask for help for tricky situations.

Creating an event which can take place termly to help support and develop everyone’s practice.

This session will be taking place at the at Short Wood Primary school

Please book space through;

https://wrekinforestschool.co.uk/events/category/training-sessions

£5 to cover Tea and Cake

CPD

CPD Courses 2024-2025

The new 2024-25 CPD booklet is now available on the Telford Education Services website.

In the usual way, all CPD courses and conferences can be booked by completing and returning a CPD booking form to cpdschoolimprovement@telford.gov.uk (unless denoted differently)

We very much look forward to welcoming you to our courses and events again this year.

CPD Booking form

Primary, Secondary and Post-16 Maths – Funded Opportunities

To raise awareness of DfE funded opportunities

The SHaW Maths Hub Catalogue 2024-25 outlines our range of funded, professional and school development opportunities for Early Years, Primary, Secondary & Post-16. The overview index on Page 6 offers you:

· the chance to click directly to pages of interest for your school.

· greater awareness of the full Maths Hubs offer.

Places available for these Telford-based and online opportunities:

Primary

Teaching for Mastery (+ £1000 funding) - based at and led by Primary Mastery Specialists at William Reynolds, Lightmoor Village and Sir Alexander Fleming Primary Schools

ECTs

Specialist Knowledge – Teachers

Specialist Knowledge – TAs

Secondary

Subject Leaders

Non-specialists

Specialist Knowledge – TAs

Supporting students to achieve a Level 2 qualification in Maths

Post-16

Specialist Knowledge for Teaching Core Maths

Developing A Level Pedagogy

Other Information and Resources

The Racist Incidents Annual Returns for the academic year 2023-2024

Deadline to record racist incidents is Thursday, 26th September 2024!

As part of the Telford and Wrekin safeguarding audit in Part 5 Child on child abuse, including sexual violence, sexual harassment and hate crime, there is a direct reference to ensuring this is completed by the school. (see below)

“All racist incidents reported in our settings are recorded on an individual and annual return using the Racist Incident Reporting and Recording System (IRIS). The reporting of incidents takes place within seven days of the incident being reported or as soon as reasonably practicable. The DSL regularly reviews this data to identify emerging themes and inform preventative and responsive work around racist incidents. We manage racist incidents in line with our anti-bullying policy, behaviour policy and child-on-child abuse policy.”

IRIS (The Individual and Annual Return Racist Incident Reporting and Recording System) information is held confidentially within the council and is used to inform council agencies to ensure that the appropriate support is put in place for schools to access. Schools can request support from the Multicultural Development Team (MDT) if they have specific concerns or questions relating to any incidents.

The annual return (including Nil return) for racist incidents in the academic year September 2023 - August 2024 is now due. The schools which have access to the IRIS system can complete the annual returns using the link https://iris.telford.gov.uk/

All individual racist incidents should have been logged during the academic year as the system does not allow the user to backdate individual incidents once the annual return has been submitted. If you have an incident which has not been logged, you need to ensure it is uploaded before you complete the annual return. The deadline for the annual returns 2023-24 to be logged online is Thursday, 26th September 2024. No previous academic year incident will be able to be logged after the above date, as the system will not allow it, as it will be collating annual returns.

The schools which do not have access to IRIS need to complete the annual returns using paper forms. Please contact MDT directly to request the required forms on multicultural.development@telford.gov.uk.

Should you have any queries regarding the IRIS system, please get in touch with a member of the MDT team. MDT will be holding 20 mins online drop-in sessions to schools on the following dates:

Monday, 16th September (PM)

Thursday, 19th September (PM)

Thursday, 26th September (All day)

If you would like support, please contact the Multicultural Development Team. This will allow you to have a one-to-one supportive session via Teams to address individual school’s concerns regarding any area relating to IRIS if needed.

Book your Pedestrian Training for Reception, KS1 & KS2

Pedestrian Training courses available for Reception, KS1 & KS2 pupils. 1 day course which consists of a classroom session followed by a practical walk in the local area.

Pedestrian Training Poster

Speaking to children and young people about violent disorder and the Southport attack

Guidance is available to help teachers, education leaders and students navigate some of the issues that might be triggered by the recent outbreaks of violence, and make sure everyone feels safe and protected whether in school, college or university.

The horrific attack in Southport on 29 July 2024 and the violent disorder in its aftermath, have caused grave concern across the country.

Following the attack, rioting coordinated by right-wing extremists was initiated by the spread of misinformation about the perpetrator of the Southport attack, resulting in in violent, racist and Islamophobic attacks on our communities by extremists.

Such events are likely to spark conversations in schools, colleges and universities, and will have an impact on pupils and students, including those who may have family and friends who have been affected. Guidance is available to help teachers, education leaders and students navigate some of the issues that might be triggered by the recent outbreaks of violence, and make sure everyone feels safe and protected whether in school, college or university.

Support is available for schools, colleges and universities to talk about such difficult issues with children, young people and adult learners. Alongside resources on the Educate Against Hate website, there are a range of other resources available to schools on these topics, including:

This entry was posted by Becky on Monday, 09 September 2024.

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Every week during term time we publish a new update for the education community. It includes essential briefings and specialist information about education.

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