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Dear Colleagues,
This week's education update is below.
Best wishes,
John
John Rowe
Head of Education Quality and Safeguarding
john.rowe@shropshire.gov.uk
Dear Colleagues,
In addition to the on-line option on 13th October, this term's primary Headteacher Briefing also includes an 'in person' option on 14th October at Guildhall, SY3 8HG, 13:30 to 16:00. The content of the briefing is the same, but this provides a really useful opportunity for headteachers to meet informally with headteacher and LA colleagues which isn't possible via Teams.
If you would like to attend, please can you indicate if you are able to attend on the form: In-person Primary Headteachers Briefing - 14th October 2026 Booking Form – Fill in form
Details of the other briefing sessions are here.
I look forward to seeing you there.
John Rowe.
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Further to Natasha Moody's letter to maintained schools, we are seeking representatives from maintained schools to join the Shropshire SEND sufficiency board.
The establishment of the Board reflects the importance of ensuring that Shropshire has sufficient, high-quality and sustainable local provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. As demand for specialist support continues to increase, it is essential that we take a strategic, coordinated and evidence-led approach to planning future provision, strengthening mainstream inclusion, making best use of available capital and revenue resources, reducing travel time for children and young people, enabling them to attend schools within their own locality, and reducing reliance on placements outside the county.
If there are any maintained schools interested in joining, please contact john.rowe@shropshire.gov.uk
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Reminder!
Our maintained headteacher's day (and forum) is scheduled for Friday 23rd October at the Lantern. If you're able to attend for some/all of the day (which includes lunch) please fill in this form
Maintained Headteacher Workshop and Forum
The workshop planned for Tuesday 29th September is being postponed until November 17th.
THIS IS AN INPERSON EVENT (there is no virtual attendance) This event is for middle and senior leaders who are aspiring to assistant, deputy headteacher and headteacher roles. The meeting will involve an element of CPD related to school improvement. There will also be a briefing on current trends or emerging issues for schools to be aware of. Then followed by an opportunity to network with colleagues informally sharing best practice and/or discussing current issues and how other settings are addressing them. This training session will focus on effective school monitoring drilling down from the data and using evidence from pupil conferences and book looks to inform school self-evaluation.
The venue for this session will be confirmed at a later date. We are planning to hold the session in a school located centrally in the county.
Booking link: Aspiring Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher Networking Meeting
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The DfE has confirmed that "the new statutory guidance on allergy safety in schools applies to education settings. They do not apply to home to school transport. This means there is no statutory duty for passenger assistants and drivers to have allergy training or to have spare adrenaline devices in their vehicles.
However, as set out in part 3 of our home to school travel guidance, local authorities should ensure that drivers and passenger assistants working on dedicated school transport have undertaken appropriate training, that it is for the local authority to decide what training is required, and that these decisions should be informed by their risk assessments."
The LA already assesses and puts training in place when required for children and young people with medical conditions; this includes carrying and using adrenaline devices/epi-pens and the associated training.
As it currently stands, the DfE are not issuing any amended guidance to LA transport team but clearly, we will have a regard for the guidance issued to schools and continue to operate a robust risk assessment and training process.
We will of course continue to routinely review our approach and can adapt if required.
Kind regards
Kelly Kovacs, Specialist Travel and Policy Manager
Passenger Transport Group
Shropshire Council
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E Visits Live
As you will be aware we were migrating over to a new version of the E Visits website and I can confirm that migration has now been completed. When you visit the previous version you will be redirected to the new website which can be visited here - eVisit . When you get to the login page for the first time you will need to click ‘forgot password’ to reset your password and gain access to the new site, if you don’t receive an email at this point please check your ‘spam’ folder. This version has a very robust ‘Training Hub’ containing notes and videos on how to do everything within E Visits, there shouldn’t be anything it can’t answer for you but should you be stuck please drop an email to EducationalVisits@shropshire.gov.uk and I’ll signpost you to what you’re looking for. It is worth noting that due to the advancement within the new version any visits which were in draft format/had not been approved in version 1 will not have carried over to the new site, these will need to be recreated, similarly you won’t be able to clone previous trips until they have first been created for the first time in version 2.
Rob Earll
System Co-ordinator, DBS, 24U & Educational Visits
Learning and Skills
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Welcome to the Entrust Educational Visits Advisory Service. Working in collaboration with Shropshire Council
My name is Gareth Lloyd and I am an Educational Visits Adviser (EVA) with Entrust.
Entrust provides Educational Visits Advice and Guidance services to schools, academies and multi-academy trusts across Staffordshire and neighbouring local authority areas. The service forms part of Entrust Outdoors and has supported schools in planning and managing educational visits and learning outside the classroom for many years. Prior to the formation of Entrust in 2013, the service was delivered through Staffordshire County Council.
I am a qualified teacher with extensive experience in Learning Outside the Classroom, including leadership and management roles within outdoor education centres. I have worked as an Educational Visits Adviser since 2013 and am an active member of the Outdoor Education Advisers' Panel (OEAP), as well as an OEAP Course Director.
Supporting Educational Visits in Shropshire
The Entrust Educational Visits Advisory Service will operate in accordance with Shropshire Council's Policy and Guidance for Educational Visits and Journeys. Entrust and Shropshire Council have adopted the nationally recognised guidance produced by the Outdoor Education Advisers' Panel (OEAP) and are committed to supporting schools in delivering safe, high-quality educational visits.
The Entrust EVA team will review visits submitted through the E-Visits system that are designated as Category 2b, namely visits that:
- Are residential in nature
- Involve overseas travel
- Include adventurous activities
Where visits are submitted within the timescales specified in Section 4.10 of the Shropshire Council policy, the EVA team will review the submission and provide advice, guidance and feedback through the E-Visits system. Where necessary, we may request additional information to support the planning and approval process.
Our role is to help schools manage educational visits effectively, support compliance with policy and good practice, and provide professional advice where required.
Contact
If you require advice or guidance on any aspect of educational visits, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Email: eva@entrust-ed.co.uk
Mobile: 07794 331637
We look forward to working with you and supporting you in providing safe, enriching and memorable learning experiences for children and young people.
The use of E-Visits will continue at normal and advice and guidance (accredited by the Outdoor Education Advisers Council in line with our policy) can be accessed by contacting Entrust.
We will share details of EVC training shortly.
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Thank you to those Safeguarding Leads who were able to attend the School/College Safeguarding Leads Autumn Term 1 Network on Thursday 10th September 2026. Please refer to the School/Colleges Safeguarding Leads Networks 2026-2027 Padlet which contains the slides presented and feedback provided by those who attended. The contributions that you shared as part of the co-consultancy design exercise relating to the Family Help Lead Practitioner have provided the Children’s Transformation Team and the Shropshire Safeguarding Community Partnership Children’s Safeguarding Board with vital information to help shape how the role will develop as we continue to transform our local arrangements. Thank you for sharing your views with us.
Please let us be clear that at present no final decisions have been made and we will continue to ensure that education providers are communicated with and are provided with further opportunities to contribute to the changes taking place.
In the meantime, please make sure that you use and follow Family Help Together - A Framework for Action — Shropshire Safeguarding Community Partnership. The Shropshire Safeguarding Community Partnership are delivering several webinars through the Autumn Term to support practitioners to do this: Using the Family Help Together Framework in Everyday Practice — Shropshire Safeguarding Community Partnership
Here are some of the ways you can continue to keep yourselves up to date/engaged with the transformation of our local safeguarding arrangements:
Our next Safeguarding Leads network will be on 26th November 2026 - 10:00-12:00 Online via Teams (please book yourself on using this link).
Kind regards,
The Education Quality and Safeguarding Team
Learning and Skills
Website: Safeguarding and Child Protection | Shropshire Learning Gateway (shropshirelg.net)
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Shropshire HR School's Advisory Team are in the process of 'consulting with' the trade unions in respect of updates to a series of school HR policies. The following polices have been 'shared with' the trade unions and are now accessible to schools via the SLG and the dedicated Teams channel.
Policies & Procedures | Shropshire Learning Gateway
KCSiE 2026: Code of Conduct for Staff Working in Schools
KCSiE 2026: Safer Recruitment Policy (including checklist)
KCSiE 2026: Online Safety Policy
KCSiE 2026: Whistleblowing Procedure for Schools
KCSiE 2026: Maintaining Appropriate Relationships with Pupils
For ease of reference, and as for previous years, the text highlighted in YELLOW is for the school to review and confirm/amend in respect of their agreed local processes. The text highlighted in BLUE has been added to identify the new and/or updated wording or sections required of relevant and statutory changes.
Please review and action any local process and/or procedural changes required by these updates, before removing the highlighted text.
The Governing Body is advised to formally adopt the updated policies as soon as possible, ensuring that they are subsequently made available to school staff.
Please contact your HR Advisor with any query or question.
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Autumn Term EVC Training dates are now available.
EVC Initial Training - 12th October 2026, 09:00 - 16:00 (online)
EVC Revalidation Training - 9th November 2026, 09:00 - 13:00 (online)
Please visit Educational Visits | Shropshire Learning Gateway for more details and booking information.
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Designated Teacher Network
Celebrating attachment / trauma-responsive and nurture practice in Shropshire
A multi-agency networking and breakfast event for School Leaders, Designated Teachers for Looked After Children/PLAC, Social Care, Early Help & LA Education colleagues
DT_Network_ flyer 13th November .pdf
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Join us for “Becoming: How We Support Young People to Define Their Future”, a free professional learning event funded by Shropshire Virtual School on Thursday 8 October 2026 at Shrewsbury Town FC.
The morning will feature two inspiring sessions led by Mike Nicholson from Progressive Masculinity and Dr Eleanor Tomlinson from The EP Space, exploring how we can support young people to develop healthy identities, emotional literacy, empathy and positive futures. Ideal for school staff, social care, early help, learning and skills colleagues, the event offers practical ideas, case studies and tools that can be used immediately in practice.
Positive Masculinities collaboration.pdf
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Please see detailed regarding Regional In-Person Training for school business professionals (SBPs) working in or with, local authority maintained schools, academies, and trusts. The sessions are completely free to attend and cover a range of topics, offering practical knowledge, tools and insights you can apply immediately.
Sessions will be available until March 2027.
The following topics are available between September and November, book directly via: SheepApp
- Integrated curriculum and financial planning (ICFP)
- Leading ICFP Together
- Procurement
- Strategic planning and operational leadership
- Human resources and flexible working
- Leadership and leading change
New for this term is Leading ICFP Together – This session builds on the current ICFP session and is designed for SBPs to attend with other leaders from their school or trust, such as; CEO, headteacher, curriculum lead or finance committee, governor, trustee. We strongly encourage everyone to book their places with a colleague or colleagues for this session as this is intended to be a collaborative, interactive session working through case studies and examples of ICFP.
For further information about the sessions, please visit: Regional In-person Training Sessions — ISBL or email SBP.Policy@education.gov.uk.
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Tell us about your experience of SEND services in Shropshire
We know parent carers have valuable insight into what works well and what could be better. That's why we're inviting parent carers of children and young people aged 0–25 with SEND to complete our confidence survey.
Your child does not need a formal diagnosis to take part. We want to hear from families whose children have emerging needs, receive SEN Support, are waiting for assessment or diagnosis, are going through an EHC needs assessment, or have an EHCP.
The survey is anonymous and will help SEND partners understand where families feel supported and where further improvements are needed.
By taking part, you are helping to shape the future of SEND services across Shropshire.
Complete the survey today and make sure your voice is heard.
The survey closes on 9th October 2026 - Parent Carer Confidence Survey
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