A message from Alison Jeffery
We have finally reached the end of this exceptionally challenging year. As ever, a huge well done to everyone and massive thanks for the many, many ways in which all of you have gone the extra mile for children, young people and families.
As some of you know I am leaving Portsmouth to go to East Sussex as Director of Children's Services there. Over the last five years it has been brilliant to see how the idea and work of the Portsmouth Education Partnership, reflecting the commitment of all schools and academies to all children in the city, has grown. The PEP conference a couple of weeks ago was a confident, stimulating and inspiring event involving so many people from across the city working together on an ambitious agenda from digital learning and peer review to literacy and creating positive school communities through restorative practice.
We still face many challenges in Portsmouth as the pandemic charts its continuing course. Staying focused on delivering the best possible education to children is absolutely vital and may not be easy next year. As Team Portsmouth, however, you are all impressively skilled, determined and deeply committed. As we welcome the new independent chair of the Partnership, Frances Soul, PEP is well placed to face the future with confidence.
In the short term, I hope you all have a very restful, much deserved, summer holiday.
Very best wishes,
Alison Jeffery
Director, Children, Families and Education
Portsmouth City Council
Leadership, recruitment and retention |
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Information for school governors
Portsmouth City Council has written to those governors in Portsmouth for whom we have email addresses with information about next year's governor briefing sessions, which will happen virtually. The dates are as follows:
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New governor briefing
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Wednesday 29 September 2021
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4.30pm - 6pm
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Portsmouth governor briefing - autumn term
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Tuesday 12 October 2021
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4.30pm - 6pm
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Portsmouth governor briefing - spring term
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Wednesday 26 January 2022
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4.30pm - 6pm
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Portsmouth governor briefing - summer term
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Thursday 12 May 2022
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4.30pm - 6pm
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All Portsmouth governors, from both LA maintained schools and academies, are welcome to join any of these sessions. To book a place on these sessions, or to be added to the governor mailing list, please email schoolgovernor@portsmouthcc.gov.uk indicating which session(s) you would like to join. An email with the meeting link will be circulated the day before the meeting.
We are also keen to hear from governors about whether there are any areas where you would find it particularly useful to receive additional support or advice from Portsmouth City Council over the next year. Whilst our capacity is limited there are clear benefits all round to maintaining strong communications between governors and the council, and we would like to hear from you about where our limited resource is most usefully targeted.
We would be grateful if Portsmouth governors, including staff/headteacher governors, could complete the survey, which should not take more than five minutes.
Curriculum and CPD |
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Summer Reading Challenge 2021 - Wild World Heroes
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The Summer Reading Challenge involves pupils reading as many books as they can over the summer and recording these in their fold out poster or online. There's a certificate and a medal for all pupils who complete the challenge, presented to children at Southsea Castle on Sunday 19 September.
The School Library Service will be awarding the top six schools with the most number of completers, as a percentage of their on roll figure, a beanbag of their choice for their library.
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The Summer Reading Challenge is an ideal way to encourage pupils to read over the long summer break.
Parents and carers are also being encouraged to take part this year along with their children. Adults will be given a book mark encouraging them to join in and complete a number of reading challenges with a chance to win one of four family passes to Exploria, the new attraction at the Pyramids Centre.
Free computing support
Phil Wickins will be continuing as the National Centre for Computing Education’s subject matter expert for Portsmouth and Gosport as of September 2021. This means that for those schools who Phil has already started supporting, he can continue to assist you in all of your computing curriculum needs.
For those schools who have not yet accepted the support, Phil will be able to offer half a day to support you and your school in delivering a high quality computing curriculum. This can be in the form of helping your computing leader develop an overview, support with planning, skills progression, or indeed delivering whole staff CPD in INSETs or after school PDMs.
Please email Phil with any requests as soon as possible to get the ball rolling. This is fully funded support from the DfE and available to all state schools in CAT 5/6 Local Area Districts.
A free online teach meet for computing leaders/teachers, is being hosted by Park House Computing Hub (the computing hub for Portsmouth) on Wednesday 22 September.
Phil is also looking to facilitate more free Crumble (physical computing) two-hour courses in Portsmouth so please can you let him know if you would be interested in either hosting or attending. The last training session at the University of Portsmouth was a great success!
For all enquiries, please email: p.wickins@stem.org.uk
Portsmouth Arts Network Windows of Hope showcase |
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The Portsmouth Arts Network are excited to share the end result of their 'Windows of Hope' project bringing together a phenomenal number of children across our city through performance and art.
The showcase is now available to watch on YouTube.
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 Take on Imagine Portsmouth's creative challenge this summer
Can you capture the spirit of Portsmouth in a photograph or poem? This summer Imagine Portsmouth is inviting children and young people to get creative and enter photographs of Portsmouth or poems about the city into its competition.
There's a chance to win prizes, including a lesson from a professional poet or photographer - it's a great activity for the holidays. Children, young people (and adults!) can find out more and submit entries via the Imagine Portsmouth website.
The competition closes on Sunday 5 September.
Summer activities at Fort Nelson
Fort Nelson have lots of free children’s activities to keep the children entertained this summer holiday. Activities includes a new action stations trail, insight tours, a low-level maze, and history live weekends – costumed characters recounting tales about life at the Fort from Victorian times to WW2. All activities are free of charge!
There is also an assault course, which is £4.50 per child.
Entry is free, but bookings need to be made in advance.
Free Motiv8 summer activity programme for young people |
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Motiv8 is providing a number of exciting free to access activities for young people over the summer, including:
- Swimming
- Inspirational sessions promoting good wellbeing
- Ice skating
- Fishing
- Cooking
A full list of the activities including booking details can be found here.
Emotional health and wellbeing |
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 Kooth is available for wellbeing support this summer
As we approach the summer holidays, please remind pupils that free online mental health support is available throughout the break at Kooth.com. Kooth is accessible through any device with internet access. We’ve also provided a message which we’d be grateful if you could include in communications to parents and guardians.
Terms 1 and 2: booking in Kooth sessions
Now might be a good time to book in a Kooth session for term 1 or 2. Sessions are available as follows:
- Intro to Kooth assembly for students (10 - 20 mins)
- Sign up session for students (30 mins - 1 hour)
- Workshops for students: stress and anxiety, wellbeing, anger awareness, male targeted session on mental health, etc. (30 mins - 1 hour)
- Kooth webinars for whole staff teams, which include a live tour of the Kooth site.
If it's difficult to find the time to book in a Kooth session, we have pre-recorded sessions which you can fit around the school timetable, e.g. an intro to Kooth assembly or a tour of the Kooth site. If you would like a pre-recorded session, please email kdawber@kooth.com who can provide the link and the password.
Resources
Alternatively, you can order some free Kooth resources, such as A3/A4 posters and small Kooth cards which can be handed out to young people, in preparation for term 1. Email kdawber@kooth.com with how many you require and which address to send them to.
 Summer advice and support leaflet
NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight have produced a flyer to encourage local people to be ready for summer with advice on things they can do and details on which service to use should they need urgent care and support.
Please share this information with parents and carers ahead of the summer holidays.
LA updates
Support worker (LGBTQ+) vacancy
Portsmouth City Council is recruiting a support worker - LGBTQ+ to provide support to young adults who are exploring issues, or looking for support relating to their sexuality or gender identity.
The role will support young people and their families to assess need holistically and work to develop solutions that improve their experiences and lives. With support of the team, the role will ensure that help is provided to families and young people in the most effective way to ensure that the improved outcomes are achieved for children and families.
The closing date is Friday 23 July 2021.
Education Information Services: Alternative secondary school profiles 2021
As per the email from André Merel on 13 July 2021, the EIS team can provide you with a version of our school profiles to support your school, should you wish us to do so. Last year, the majority of Portsmouth secondary schools took advantage of this free offer. As with last year's alternative profile, the aim is to provide school leaders with reports to assist with self-evaluation and to support recovery during the current pandemic. These alternative profiles are not for accountability purposes.
To receive your profile in September, you will need to send your exam board files by Wednesday 15 September. If you send your data, a benefit is that you would be able to interact with your data using the Perspective Lite system from the National Consortium for Examination Results (NCER). If you are unsure how to access this, please contact us using the details below.
Please remember that these profiles are a voluntary offer, you don't have to provide data for us to generate. The school profile is available for free to schools with the EIS SLA, and can be purchased as an ad hoc service for those without the SLA.
For further information, please email: education.informationservices@portsmouthcc.gov.uk
GSCE headline figures for 2021
This is a reminder that Mike Stoneman has requested that schools provide their GCSE headline figures with the summer 2021 results. This will allow the council to share with the media and Members some top-level analysis for the city as a whole based on these headline measures. We would not share individual school data nor undertake any comparative analysis.
Please send your results through to Education Information Services (education.informationservices@portsmouthcc.gov.uk) by 11am on Thursday 12 August 2021.
If you haven't received the original email with the template, please email EIS to be sent a copy of the template.
Full 2020/21 end of year attendance and changes datafeed
Please can all schools ensure they provide the Education Information Services team with a final attendance and changes file after registers close on the final day of term. This will help the team to ensure the new data can be updated efficiently in September. Non-SIMS schools will need to upload their files to SSE; SIMS schools will need to complete a manual transfer.
If you are unsure of how to create a manual transfer in SIMS, please email the EIS team's inbox: education.informationservices@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.
 Self-isolating still vital to protect Portsmouth
Regular testing, contact tracing and self-isolating are still vitally important in limiting the spread of coronavirus and protecting people around us. You must self-isolate if you have coronavirus symptoms, have tested positive or have been told to self-isolate by the NHS COVID-19 app, NHS Test and Trace or local contact tracing teams. You must self-isolate even if you have been vaccinated as you can still catch and pass on coronavirus to others.
Portsmouth City Council has developed a guide to self-isolating that explains when you need to self-isolate, what you can and can't do while you're self-isolating and where you can turn for local help and support - including how to apply for test and trace support payments if you will lose vital income as a result of self-isolating. There are also tips on being prepared to self-isolate at short notice and ideas for keeping busy while you're staying at home to protect others.
The HR news information is located on the human resources Google homepage and maintained schools and any academy with an HR Traded Services agreement can access it here.
Further information can be obtained by contacting HR.
PEP calendar
The PEP calendar contains dates of events, network meetings, conferences, training and workshops taking place in Portsmouth.
To help make the calendar as useful as possible for everyone, colleagues and partners are encouraged to regularly add relevant dates that you'd like to share. If you're scheduling your own event or training, you can check availability on the PEP calendar to avoid potential clashes with other events.
To add a date to the PEP calendar, simply forward your meeting invite to pepportsmouth@gmail.com and it will be added automatically.
Please note that the email address pepportsmouth@gmail.com should only be used to add items to the PEP calendar. All queries regarding the Portsmouth Education Partnership should continue to be sent to pep@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.
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