A message from Paul Wagstaff,
Director of Education & Skills
1 June 2020
Dear colleagues,
I am aware that many of you are beginning the phased return for additional pupils over the coming days and will be very engaged in planning for this. Whilst I am aware of some external pressures being exerted to halt any phased return, I thank you for your support in undertaking your risk assessments seriously and planning for the phased return in safe and manageable ways.
Attendance Recording and Reporting
Colleagues will be aware that the DfE guidance on recording and reporting attendance has changed. Please find attached the revised guidance.
Schools should begin to take the attendance register following wider re-opening from 1 June. Data from the attendance register can be used to support schools to complete the daily educational setting status form. The DfE will not be collecting pupil level data through the educational setting status form. The questions in the educational setting status form on pupil attendance, absence, and illness, shielding or isolation have been designed so that schools following the attendance register guidance should be able to easily identify students with the relevant codes to fill in the daily data return.
As the DfE has removed the spreadsheet tool and video tutorial, we ask all schools to discontinue using the spreadsheet templated and ONLY fill in the DfE form, here, and send a copy to covid19attend@westsussex.gov.uk. For recording and reporting the attendance of Children Looked After, we ask that you continue to notify attendance through the dedicated email address.
Government Laptops for children with social workers
The laptops ordered for children with a social worker are due to be delivered to County Hall, Chichester on Tuesday of this week. They will be sorted and distributed to the individual schools with the named child on the box. Schools will need to get the laptops ready for use and linked to the school’s own systems. The government scheme of laptops for disadvantaged pupils in Year 10 have not been dispatched as yet but we will keep you in the loop on their arrival and distribution dates.
Family activities during lockdown
The council’s SEND commissioning team have partnered up with its Short Break providers to produce a public Wiki full of helpful information for families about Covid-19. As well as providing a wealth of useful resources, the interactive Wiki is also full of practical suggestions for activities for children, young people and their families and carers during these challenging times.
There’s resources for young children to young adults, including YouTube videos, links to online activities and lots of ideas for keeping busy and learning new things.
The Wiki can be accessed by anyone so please consider sharing the following link with your families: https://wiki.rixwiki.org/west-sussex-mmm/home/short-breaks-6
National Updates
Please find the relevant updates from the end of last week/weekend if you have not been able to locate these already:
Disapplication notice: school inspections legislation changes - Secretary of State for Education issues a second notice about changes to state-funded school inspections requirements during the coronavirus outbreak.
Disapplication notice: school attendance legislation changes - Added a second notice covering June 2020.
Modification notice: school registration legislation changes - Added a second notice for June 2020.
Changes to the law on education, health and care needs assessments and plans due to coronavirus - Updated guidance with additional or amended material, including as to: cases in progress on 1 May 2020; annual reviews for those with EHC plans changing phase of education; actions following a tribunal ruling; and unchanged duties in relation to social care provision in plans. Also improvement to the format of the tables in Annex A and a minor change to footnote 1.
School attendance: guidance for schools - Guidance on using pupil registers and attendance codes, as well as setting school hours and term dates. Updated guidance to 30 June 2020.
Best wishes,
Paul
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