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Well done to Bridget from Rackham Primary for her excellent quote in the recent Independent article on the ongoing pressure on schools funding. Any article which starts ‘One school leader is performing a skydive to raise funds for pupils’ is well worth a read. You can sponsor her here.
Just a reminder for the Primary heads meeting on the 19th March where I will be covering the financial implications of funding on the high needs block. We still have some spaces available and you can book here. Don’t miss out on key information we will be covering.
Jon
We are continuing to provide updates on the Coronavirus via the schools newsletter. I appreciate this a time of uncertainty and the media has been full of stories around school closures. I know there are many questions you may have that are as yet unanswered. The stance from all parties is very much for schools to remain open and deal with each case as it arrives. This is in line with the national guidance previously shared.
I spoke to the Regional Schools Commissioner (the lead for the area in the DfE) earlier in the week over some of the areas I would like DfE clarity. This including decision making around medically vulnerable children, the quality of advice from the DfE helpline, upcoming assessments and examinations and the requirements placed on schools to support children learning in the case of closure. I hope further guidance will be available shortly and we are planning locally for how we support schools if the eventuality of closure is forthcoming. I would suggest every school reviews their critical incident plan at this point.
We are here to help so please do not hesitate to contact either myself, Chris Meddle or Diane Stygal for any further advice you may need.
Best wishes
Jon
The DFE helpline offers guidance for anyone with education related questions – from Early years up to universities plus parents.
In Cambridgeshire you are to let Chris Meddle know if you have to close.
Details
Department for Education Coronavirus helpline
Today, we have launched a new helpline to answer questions about COVID-19 related to education. Staff, parents and young people can contact the helpline as follows:
Phone: 0800 046 8687
Email: DFE.coronavirushelpline@education.gov.uk
Opening hours: 8am to 6pm (Monday to Friday)
No school should close in response to a suspected (or confirmed) COVID-19 case unless directed to do so by Public Health England.
Below is additional information and links to guidance that the DFE have provided this week:
The importance of hygiene
Personal hygiene is the most important way we can tackle COVID-19. Please help us in sharing simple and effective hand hygiene messages.
Public Health England has a dedicated webpage with a range of posters and digital materials at:
https://campaignresources.phe.gov.uk/resources/campaigns/101-coronavirus-/resources
Sign up is quick, free and means you will be alerted as more resources are made available.
New guidance for employers
The Department for Business (BEIS) and Public Health England have issued guidance for employers, which you can find at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-employers-and-businesses-about-covid-19/guidance-for-employers-and-businesses-on-covid-19
Where to find the latest information
Updates on COVID-19:
https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
Guidance for educational settings:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-educational-settings-about-covid-19
Travel advice for those travelling and living overseas:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/travel-advice-novel-coronavirus
Chris Meddle
Senior Adviser for Leadership
Coronavirus advice poster (landscape orientation)
Coronavirus advice poster (portrait orientation)
Off Site Activities Insurance – Corona Virus Guidance from the LA Insurance and Risk team
Below is a brief summary of how the Off Site insurance policy would operate at this time. If you have any questions that are not covered here please email insurance@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
Disinclination to Travel
The Off Site Activities insurers (as most insurers do) adopt the principle that their policy coverage follows the advice that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) provide in respect of any country (or part of country).
If the FCO website indicates no risk to travelling the decision to cancel would be deemed to be disinclination to travel and any cancellation costs would not be covered by the insurance.
With an issue such as Coronavirus, however the position can change quite quickly. For instance the FCO advice for parts of Northern Italy only recently changed to advice against all but essential travel.
Our advice would be to monitor the news media and then verify any concerns via the FCO website –
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice.
Cancellation can be made (and is recoverable under the policy) even the day before the trip.
The FCO website also links to a sensible document on how to stay safe in countries where there have been cases.
Policy coverage
In the event that the travel party is quarantined then the following sections could apply; though of course this would be subject to the individual circumstances of any claim or loss:
- Medical Expenses – Unlimited coverage
- Supplementary Travel and Accommodation Expenses outside the UK – Limit £25,000. However it must be noted that if there was a quarantine situation whilst the group is away then the Accommodation Expenses would not cover the cost of parents travelling to be with their children
- Emergency Repatriation Expenses – Unlimited. This would be governed by the World Health Organisation and the ‘Destinations’ and the UK’s government agencies. Carriers of the virus to date, have been flown back at tax payers expense
- Replacement Travel Expenses – up to £3,000. This would cover expenses incurred in having to arrange a revised / later trip back to UK
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Julia Baddeley, Business Officer |
The School Improvement Service is sad to announce that we will soon to be losing two very valuable colleagues . Julia Baddeley, who has worked in many different roles in the Council over the past almost twenty-eight years, will be leaving on 26th March. Julia has been Personal Assistant to Rosemarie Sadler (Head of Service) for the last three years. Prior to that she was PA to Guy Dickens. Julia will be a familiar name to many Headteachers and Governors and will be greatly missed for her positive, organised and calm manner. We thank Julia for all her years of service to the Council. Happy retirement Julia – you certainly deserve it!
Lisa Murphy (School Improvement Adviser) will also be leaving the Service after four years. Lisa has worked with many schools in this role and prior to that was a Cambridgeshire Headteacher. We wish Lisa a very happy retirement and thank her for her great commitment, her kindness to all staff and her ‘can do’ attitude.
We will be recruiting to both of these posts on Public Sector Jobs East. Or for an informal discussion please contact me.
Rosemarie Sadler
Head of Service, School Improvement
As many of you will know by now, Brian Howard (Education Capital Strategy Manager for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough) will be retiring on 31 March 2020. On 24 March 2020, between 4.00 and 6.00 pm in the Bourges Room at the Town Hall in Peterborough, there will be the opportunity to mark this occasion and wish him well for the future. We hope as many of you as possible will be able to join us.
Should you wish to sign a leaving card and/or contribute to a present please contact either:
Emma Everett or Sharon Bishop (Peterborough); or Jo German or Rachael Holliday (Cambridgeshire)
Please do pass on this message to other colleagues who you think would like to know.
Following discussions with the DfE, we have now received confirmation that it is possible for schools to record children on their census return as a Service Pupil whilst also being eligible for Free School Meals / Pupil Premium - where they meet the criteria for both premiums.
The DfE are aware that if a school records a child as both SPP and FSM / PP on their census return an E1741 error will be triggered on submission. However, they have confirmed that the return will be manually authorised by the DfE, provided a notepad explanation is included within the return.
If you have any queries regarding this matter, please contact the Education Welfare Benefits Team at ewb.fsm@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.
Please find the destinations booklet for Cambridgeshire County Council for 2019 here. This booklet provides information on the destinations of those young people who left Cambridgeshire Schools in June 2019.
May I personally apologise for the delay in this information being available to you all. We have had a few technical difficulties in pulling the data together since moving to a new system last year, this was the first year of creating this booklet from the new system.
For your information, this year’s booklet is slightly larger than previous years and this is because of the way the data has been put together. Some of the tables have been split into 3 tables. Table a) providing numbers of young people, table b) providing % connected to the numbers in table a) and table c) which is overall Cambridgeshire result split between genders. Hopefully when you look at the booklet, it will make more sense.
If you have any questions or queries regarding the data, please feel free to contact me via email or phone on the number below.
Individual school reports will be sent out to schools in the next couple of weeks.
Mark Cowdell
Countywide NEET Manager
01223 507218
Schools must be open to pupils for 190 days in an academic year, and 195 days for teachers. Schools have five training days available to take at their discretion. DfE guidance on School Attendance does not ask the Local Authority (LA) to indicate dates for the additional 5 days for training and, given that there are now so many different types of schools that do not have to follow LA guidance, it was no longer considered necessary for us to do so.
There are 5 teacher training days to be set at the discretion of individual schools. Please note these will fall inside of the 195 days published on the local authority website. We always ask schools to let us know the training day dates that they have chosen and share this information with colleagues that need to know, such as School Transport. Please complete and return the Professional Development Day Proforma by Friday 3 April 2020 to administration.supportteam@cambridgeshire.gov.uk If you have any queries in relation to this please contact the Administration Support Team at the email address given, or telephone 01223 706133.
Maths continued improvement: More than 60% of Cambridgeshire schools have now benefited from the funded teaching for mastery programme run through the Maths Hubs. If you have not yet accessed this we would encourage you to sign up for Mastery Readiness starting next term. The groups consist of seven schools and will be based in four different locations across the region.
An evaluation of the programme so far is here and an application form is here.
 31 schools have already signed up to take part in the Big Read & Write live event for all of Cambridgeshire's Year 5 children. Teachers can request the free Teacher Pack by emailing Suzie Young, and more information about the live event and how to watch live via YouTube is included. There's also a story / poetry writing competition being launched on the event day - a chance for the winner to receive Sita Brahmachari's back catalogue and to receive a class set of the books.
A register of Expression of Interest has opened for a tailored programme, run by the Maths Hubs Programme, to support Specialist Leaders of Education (SLEs) in maths to develop their school improvement work. In 2020/21, four cohorts of SLEs (in the North, Midlands, South and South-West) will each collaborate in three workshops, convened and led by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM). The programme is designed to enable SLEs from both primary and secondary schools to develop maths-specific leadership capacity and capability in the schools they support. This is a fully funded programme with some financial support also provided to enable the release of SLEs to take part. More information and an expression of interest form can be found on the SLE Development Programme web page.
Chris Dale, NCETM
Cambridge Literary Festival (Spring Festival 2020)
Thursday 16 April 2020 to Sunday 19 April 2020. The programme can be downloaded from the website.
Aspiring Headteacher Workshops - session 3 - see `Briefings' tab
Monday 16 March 2020 (13.30-16.30) CPDC. Cambs LA Maintained Schools £65, Out of County, Academies and Independent Schools £75. No charge for up to two people from schools that have purchased Element 1 & 2 of the Primary offer. Deputy Headteachers, Assistant Headteachers, Senior Teachers and Phase Leaders.
KS3 Biology for non science specialists
Thursday 26 March 2020, 09.30 – 15.30, Cambourne Village College, £125
Improving Leadership Forum - Session 4- See "Developing Leadership" Tab
Thursday 26 March 2020. Huntingdon FA. Cambs LA Maintained Schools £65, Out of County, Academies and Independent Schools £75. No charge for up to two people from schools that have purchased the new to headship package. Headteachers, Deputy Headteachers, Assistant headteathers and Newly Appointed Headteachers.
Physical Activity in EYFS and KS1 - Every Child a Mover
Friday 13 March 2020, Histon and Impington Junior School. Largely practical course especially suited to those who would like to learn more about the importance of physical activity in early years and how to engage young children in more physically active and semi-structured play. £125/£145.
Specialist Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics Programmes (Secondary teachers and TAs)
Cambridge Maths Hub.
Tuesday 17 March, Tuesday 28 April and Tuesday 23 June, Hampton College, Peterborough. For Secondary teachers and teaching assistants. FREE.
British Gymnastics Intermediate Teachers Award
Monday 16 & Tuesday 24 March 2020. Littleport & East Cambs Academy, Littleport. The two-day course aims to develop the candidates’ depth of knowledge and understanding of the basic principles of gymnastics, giving technical information and confidence in delivery.
Adult Mental Health First Aid – see “Mental Health “ Tab
One day course is 17th June 2020, 9.00-17.00. Next two day sessions is 24th & 26th June 2020, 9.00-17.00. Cambridge Professional Development Centre. For any member of staff. Available in one or two day Course. One day course £185, Two day course £290.
Primary Physical Education Subject Leader Network Meeting
18 March 2020. Ambury House, Huntingdon. £82.50/£99. Enable PE curriculum leaders to be up to date with the most recent changes in all aspects of PE and school sport.
Specialist Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics Programmes: Pattern focus (Early Years)
Cambridge Maths Hub.
Friday 20 March, 09:00 to 15:00, Wheatfields Primary School, St Ives.
Wednesday 29 April, 13:30 to 16:00, Thorndown Primary/Pre School, St Ives.
Wednesday 3 June, 13:30 to 16:00, Thorndown Primary School. For Early Years Teachers and TAs. FREE.
Strengthening practical work in physics
Monday 16 March 2020, 09.30 – 15.30, Sawtry Village Academy, £125
Working scientifically in the primary curriculum – pupil led investigations
Monday 23 March 2020, 09.30 – 15.30, Trumpington Park Primary School, £50
Year 6 Moderation
Thursday 21 May 2020, 13:30 to 16:00, Diamond Teaching School, Winhills Training Centre, St Neots. £60 per delegate.
Year 2 Moderation
Wednesday 6 May 2020, 13:30 to 16:00, Diamond Teaching School, Winhills Training Centre, St Neots. For teachers. £60 per delegate.
Primary Teaching Assistant Conference
Wednesday 29 April, 09:00 to 15:00, Huntingdon Marriot Hotel. £120. This conference is for all levels of primary teaching assistants to grow their understanding of their role in school and to improve the progress of the children they work with.
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