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Summer Term | 25 May 2023

New Director of Children’s Services  Devon County Council have appointed a new, permanent Director of Children and Young People’s Futures. Stuart Collins will join the Council from Kent County Council where he is currently Director of Integrated Children’s Services. A qualified social worker, with over 29 years’ experience in local authority Children’s Services, Stuart has responsibility for Children’s Social Work and Early Help Services for north and west Kent and is the strategic countywide lead on all Early Help Services. Kent’s Children’s Services were rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in their May 2022 inspection, with a report praising how children are at the centre of their culture and practice. READ MORE

School Funding Arrangements 2024-25  In 2024-25, as in previous years, the local authority will continue to set a local schools’ funding formula, in consultation with its schools, under what is known as a ‘soft’ National Funding Formula (NFF). Consultation responses are requested to be submitted no later than 11:45 pm on 15 October 2023. Virtual meetings will take place in October 2023. Wednesday 4 October 2023 – 1.30pm – 4.30pm  Thursday 5th October 2023 – 9.30am – 12.30pm

DfE Minimum expectation on the length of the school week – at least 32.5 hours by September 2023

The white paper Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child sets out the expectation that state-funded mainstream schools currently offering a school week of below 32.5 hours, should work towards increasing their hours to provide at least 32.5 hours by September 2023 at the latest.

DfE Guidance aimed at leaders of schools and trusts, school staff, trust boards and governing bodies provides details on this expectation.

There is currently no statutory process for a school to follow for changing the school day in maintained schools or academies. However, good practice suggests that schools and academies consult and take account of the views of all interested parties before they decide to make any changes to the school day.

DCC has provided the following suggested guidance:

Changes to the timings of the school day - Support for schools and settings (devon.gov.uk)

Improving support for children missing education

The DfE is seeking evidence to improve the way children missing education are identified and supported. READ MORE

Government to tackle post pandemic absence rates with new support

New plans to support pupils to drive up attendance rates in schools to improve pupils’ attainment and welfare have been announced by the Government. READ MORE

Attendance Newsletter Please click here for the latest attendance newsletter from Devon County Council.

Teachers’ professional development remains a work in progress

Teachers are not getting the high-quality training they need and struggle to find time for professional development due to their mounting workloads. READ MORE

SEND Improvement Partnership Board Update

This month the Improvement Partnership Board looked at how it can better demonstrate what change is happening, and how quickly. The Board agreed that it will be managing local authority progress through a monthly Quality Performance Review Meeting (QPRM) which will ask:

• What is working well?
• What is not working?
• What are the focus and actions for the next month?

The Improvement Plan has four sections, to match the four areas of weakness. Each section has a workstream of people delivering it. Progress will be reported to the QPRM each month. This will simplify how it are managing the improvement work. The QPRM will cover Devon County Council's progress: broader performance management will follow.

You can read the minutes of the SEND Improvement Board on the Local Offer website.

For more news from the SEND Improvement Partnership Board Click here for the latest newsletter.

Devon SEND surveys

The Improvement plan requires the Devon SEND Improvement Partnership to monitor performance against a set of measures. The Department of Education are monitoring progress closely and are looking for evidence on the impact of improvements on the experience of children and families.

The partnership has launched two surveys.

• One is for the families of children and young people - SURVEY LINK

Closing Date - 28 May 2023

You can learn more about how the PCFD are running the survey on their website.

• One is for young people themselves - SURVEY LINK

Together these surveys will provide a baseline of your experiences in order to measure the impact of improvements in future. READ MORE

Click here to read the latest news from DiAS

DAG Newsletter   Click here to view the latest newsletter from DAG.

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Keep up to date:

• Website: https://new.devon.gov.uk/eycs/
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• Email: digest@devon.gov.uk
• Subscribe to EYCS weekly newsletters here

Contact: Fran Butler Early Years and Childcare Sufficiency Lead, DCC

E-mail: fran.butler@devon.gov.uk

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