Education Matters - March 2022

Welcome to our March edition of Education Matters.

This month we have launched an engagement with our community to help shape our strategic priorities for Education & Skills for the next few years. It is a time to reassess and address the key areas that you feel are the most important and which will make the greatest difference to improving education and learning for our children.

A strategy that encompasses the future direction of our support to early years settings, schools and young people leaving schools and colleges seeking pathways into future employment and training will be the first instance where we, as a County Council, have brought all sectors into one strategy. This will help strengthen the continuity of learning pathways for all our children and young learners whilst also tackling some of the barriers we face in relation to raising attainment.

This month’s Education Matters provides a route in for everyone to ‘have their say’ and I genuinely hope we can secure as wide an engagement in this process as possible.

Paul Wagstaff

This month's Focus On... article from Alison Hannant, Link Adviser (Safeguarding), explores the challenges of achieving effective RSHE to help safeguard our children and young people.

In addition, the article considers the importance of co-production in excellent RSHE and suggests some great places to start with this endeavour.

Share Your Views to Help Inform our Draft Education & Skills Strategy

We are developing a new three-year Education & Skills strategy outlining how the County Council will support the learning of children and young people across West Sussex from early years to adulthood.

The strategy will be designed to meet the priorities and outcomes in our Council Plan and align to the improvement programme across Children, Young People and Learning.

We want to work with stakeholders to support all West Sussex children and young people in achieving the best outcomes and opportunities for future education, employment, or training.

The new Education & Skills Strategy aims to respond to national changes in policy and practice alongside local issues and priorities, some of which have been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.

To help inform and develop the draft strategy, we would be grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete a short survey which is open from now until 3rd April.

Holiday Activities and Food Programme 2022 Expressions of Interest

West Sussex County Council are once again developing a programme of free holiday activities and nutritious food for 2022 and Expressions of Interest are still being accepted for the summer and Christmas holidays.

Please see the following article for further information on how to express interest and Holiday Activities & Food funding requirements.

For more general information about the HAF programme in West Sussex, please see the relevant page on the West Sussex County Council website. #HAF2022

Young Carers Action Day 16th March - ‘Taking Action on Isolation’

As part of today's Young Carers Action Day, we are pleased to announce that West Sussex Young Carers (Family) Team have launched a new online course entitled ‘Working with Young Carers and their Families’. We are asking that schools include this as part of induction or CPD training for all school staff and volunteers.  The course is available on the WSCC Learning and Development Gateway - new users to the Gateway will need to request access by clicking on the ‘New User’ button.

Identifying young carers is the first step in addressing isolation and schools have a key part to play in this. Does your school have a lead for young carers and do pupils know who this is? Could your school run a group for young carers to take action on isolation?

For top tips from young carers and for training and other resources go to WSSfS.

If your school would like to take part in Young Carers Action day, you can find lots of free resources, posters, information and social media messages on the Carers Trust website.

Durrington Research School Blogs

Please see below a link to a blog from the Durrington Research School.

'Educational disadvantage and self-efficacy' by Chris Runeckles, Assistant Director Durrington Research School

As many school staff and governors regularly use the WSSfS website to book training courses or to attend events, we often receive questions on how to amend or cancel a booking once it has been made.  To support users of WSSfS we have produced three helpful videos to take you through the steps for:

• booking a place on a course;
• changing the delegate attending a course;
• cancelling a course booking.

Each video lasts no longer than one and a half minutes and will walk you through the steps needed to complete each of these tasks.  You can view the videos via the User Guidance - Training page without a log in. You will find a link to them from your homepage under the “Welcome” section when logged in.

Whilst on the topic of training, we have a packed spring programme of courses available.  These offer a wide range of training to support the various roles working within school settings or volunteering as governors. Please do take a moment to visit the Training homepage and search by school role, date or subject to see the upcoming courses for the spring term and view our Spring Update for examples of courses which have a specific focus on leadership, curriculum or SEND.

As always if you require any assistance with accessing the services available, please do not hesitate to email school.services@westsussex.gov.uk.