PEP Bulletin w/c 11 January 2021

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portsmouth city council
Portsmouth Education Partnership

PEP Bulletin

14 January 2021

If you have information to be included in the next issue of the PEP bulletin, please send your text, image and link by Tuesday at 12pm to pep@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.


Leadership, recruitment and retention

Teach Portsmouth Awards Live update

Further details announced

Teach Portsmouth

Teach Portsmouth want to update colleagues on nominations for this year's awards. Last week, the team met to discuss the ongoing pressures colleagues are facing in education settings. The team agreed that changing the date for the awards from Thursday 11 March to Thursday 8 July would allow senior colleagues more time to nominate peers.

Alongside the date change for the event, other changes have also taken place:  

  • Nominations will remain open online until Friday 7 May when they will close

If you have questions concerning the awards and how this change may impact you, please email teachportsmouth@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.

Find out more


Curriculum and CPD

Sigma Teaching School Alliance January newsletter

The latest newsletter from Sigma Teaching School Alliance is now available and includes information on upcoming online training, CPD courses, and governance sessions.

Read now


Primary RE e-newsletter and CPD update

The January 2021 issue of the HIAS RE primary e-newsletter is now available. A spring term RE update also provides information on all the resources and CPD available to you virtually this term.


Portsmouth primary history network

Meet other education professionals virtually in Portsmouth primary history network's meetings. The meetings are for those who want to make sure their school's primary history:

  • follows the national curriculum, is in place, sequenced and up to date (intention)
  • is taught in lively, fun and inclusive ways to develop children’s historical skills (implementation)
  • planning is in place to ensure all children make good progress (impact)
  • contemporary issues are well considered and black British history is included through KS1 and KS2

The sessions are being offered free of charge in recognition of developing subject leaders and the importance of curriculum development in the quality of education for every school.

The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday 25 February 2021. Places can be booked through the Portsmouth Learning Gateway.

Find out more


NQT induction and COVID-19 update

PTSA

A reminder to all schools who have NQTs undertaking induction of the amendments made to the statutory regulations to take account of the existing pandemic. These relate to absences in connection with the virus, including school closures, and the potential impact on NQT progress. The document below also encourages NQTs to continue to take a proactive and creative approach in gathering evidence towards the teachers' standards in whatever way is practicable.

If you have any questions please contact june.hutchinson@portsmouthtsa.org.

View document


Online resources from The Portsmouth Grammar School

As part of a community and workplace initiative, pupils at The Portsmouth Grammar School will be creating online accessible and remote friendly activities which they would like to share with other pupils and local primary schools. Specifically, throughout this half-term, they will be creating PE/fitness resources which aim to encourage and motivate other pupils to get moving and stay as active as possible whilst at home.

The sixth form pupils have already been creating and sharing resources and activities in science, tech, and mathematics, many of which are accessible online/remote friendly and can be shared infinitely.

If you would like to take part in any of the fitness activities or would like to receive any of the resources/activities in the other subject areas, we would be more than happy to share. Please contact: g.basra@pgs.org.uk.


Free Ed Tech support webinars for schools

Are you looking for ways to develop your use of technology to improve teaching and learning? Have you found yourself needing to find alternative ways to run systems such as parents' evening?

The Ed Tech Schools Demonstrator programme are proud to offer a series of free webinars for primary, secondary and college staff throughout this term.

Please click below for more details or email your local United Learning educational technologist (Miss Gemma Gwilliam) via edtechdsp@unitedlearning.org.uk for further information or to request free support for your education setting.

Find out more


Book your Stubbington Study Centre residential for academic year 2021-2022

Stubbington Study Centre is a very popular Children's Services facility giving KS2 children the opportunity to live and learn within a wonderful 14 acre seaside site.

Schools interested in booking a place for next academic year (2021 to 2022) are invited to apply online via the Stubbington website, by 31 January 2021. Prices have been frozen for next year.

Stubbington Study Centre

Find out more


Free STEM Club workshops

PTSA

As STEM Club Champion, the Portsmouth Teaching School Alliance will once again be delivering free STEM Club workshops for secondary school and FE practitioners. Delivered remotely, you will learn how to sustain and grow STEM-related clubs out of timetable for pupils and students to enhance and enrich the curriculum.

STEM Club Champion

Click the workshop links below for date availability and to book your place!

Getting started: explores best practice, ideas, opportunities, hints, tips and advice that will assist new and inexperienced club leaders to maximise the benefits a STEM Club can bring to students, schools and themselves.

How to run a successful and thriving club: looks at different ways of running a STEM Club, what a thriving and successful club is like and how to maintain interest in the young people who attend.

Enhancing employability skills and careers knowledge: explores how club leaders can bring added benefit to club sessions by enhancing essential employability skills, raising awareness of careers and helping to support the school’s careers agenda. Helping to increase club leaders’ knowledge and equip them with valuable skills that can translate into the classroom.

Measuring impact and gaining recognition: will enable club leaders to explore impact monitoring methodology, how to gather and present evidence and how to use it refine the STEM Club to better meet the needs of the students and the school.


Primary music co-ordinators meeting - 4 February, 4.15pm

Portsmouth Music Hub are hosting a primary music co-ordinators meeting on Thursday 4 February at 4.15pm.

The meeting will be held on Zoom.

If you would like to attend please email portsmouthmusichub@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.

Portsmouth Music Hub

Music 4 All

Portsmouth Music Hub have put together a collection of online resources to support learning at home. These resources are available for free to all schools and pupils learning at home.

Please feel free to share amongst your school and families.

Music 4 All

Find out more


Emotional health and wellbeing

Kooth

Kooth digital counselling and emotional wellbeing service now available

The Kooth online counselling service is now available for 11–18 year olds (covering young people in Portsmouth colleges, secondary schools and Year 6 of primary schools). For care leavers and those with an EHCP it can be accessed up until they're 25 years old. It provides young people with a free, safe and anonymous means of accessing support from qualified counsellors.

There are no referrals, thresholds or waiting lists; young people can access the service by signing onto Kooth.com. You can learn more about Kooth and access resources to help promote the service by clicking below. There are also upcoming webinars to introduce the service that you can book onto.

Find out more


Postponed: prejudicial languages and behaviours toolkit relaunch

Please note that the prejudicial languages and behaviours (PLAB) toolkit relaunch event scheduled for Wednesday 27 January has now been postponed until the summer. Further details will be provided in due course.

If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact John.Webster@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.


Childhood obesity: How much is food education in schools part of the solution?

Food - a fact of life are hosting a free online conference on 30 January from 9am - 12.30pm, tackling the importance of childhood obesity and food education in England. The conference will be presented through a series of inter-related presentations, focusing on key themes of obesity, curriculum, whole school, qualifications, food supply and, teaching and learning.

The conference is aimed at teachers in primary and secondary schools in England.

Find out more


Special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)

SEND partnership update - December 2020

The first issue of the SEND partnership update is now available. The update is aimed at the professionals across education, health, care and the voluntary and community sector who work with the approximately 4,000 Portsmouth children and young people aged 0 to 25 with SEND and their families.

Read now


LA updates

Update from the School Library Service (SLS)

Following the announcement of further lockdown measures and the indication of timescales, we want to confirm that the SLS will continue to support schools during this time. Please contact us if you have any particular book requirements for the children who are in school. Email: Lisa.Wiltshire@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.

School Library Service

Deliveries of any books requested and collections will continue to take place. Requested items can also be collected from the Centre, if you would prefer. If additional logins are required for the eBook platform for pupils in school or learning from home these can be provided for year 3 to 6 pupils. Please contact Fiona.Dexter@portsmouthcc.co.uk.


Fostering

New model for foster care launched in Portsmouth

This weekend, Portsmouth City Council will launch a new model for foster care in Portsmouth. The Mockingbird Family Model provides additional support to carers and young people by replicating an extended family, through a network of up to ten foster families. The families will form a constellation, with a hub home at the centre.

Aly and Lee Dowd have been foster carers for eight years. They are the first hub home in the new model. Aly said: "Through Mockingbird and the community that's created, you're instantly involved with a small group of people who are experiencing the same challenges and victories as you."

The Mockingbird Family Model is just one kind of foster care available in Portsmouth. There are also opportunities to foster short-term, long-term, act as a family link and/or help a young person to independence with the supported lodgings scheme.

Our first virtual foster care event of 2021 takes place on Tuesday 19 January at 7pm, via Zoom. Anyone thinking about becoming a foster carer is encouraged to attend.

Find out more


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