Director's Message - 1st March 2021
Dear Colleagues,
Action | By |
SSPB Partnership funding letter response for schools that have not already responded | Tuesday 2nd March |
Schools Safeguarding Audit | Friday 5th March |
Send some pictures of what schools have been up to over the last year to education@hillingdon.gov.uk to go in our social media post (see below for more info) | Thursday 4th March |
Complete the daily attendance return to the DfE throughout lockdown (if not already doing so) | Daily throughout lockdown |
Ensure the following documents are available on school websites:
| Immediately |
New Guidance
Please see latest DfE operating guidance to use from 8th March on reopening schools and our Education Executive Summary [349KB]. Please contact the Education team if you are having any challenges with reopening or if there are any circumstances, once reopened, whereby you have to close a bubble or the whole school
PPE
If any settings do not have enough PPE for reopening, please contact us via the Education inbox.
Contacts - School Leaders
Please inform education@hillingdon.gov.uk if you have any temporary or permanent changes in leadership or changes in contact details so we can ensure the briefing is sent to the correct recipients.
LEAP Portal
Our LEAP Portal has been refreshed with our newly restructured Education Service and now includes team structures, profiles and contact information. Please visit Hillingdon LEAP - Leap. Please share any feedback via LEAPadmin@hillingdon.gov.uk.
Support for Testing in Secondary Schools
Colleagues at London Plus have worked with Time to Spare to adapt the volunteering website that is used widely across London, so schools and colleges can request volunteer support with lateral flow testing. Where schools and colleges do not have existing relationships with their local voluntary sector, they can use the website to find out their local volunteer centres (or CVS) and to get help with volunteers for testing.
More information can be found here - https://app.timetospare.com/volunteers/VCSEP.
Rapid testing webinar
The DfE held a webinar to provide secondary schools and colleges with an update on the rapid testing programme. If you were unable to join the webinar, you can watch a recorded version online.
A further webinar will be held in March which will focus on transitioning pupils and students from testing on-site to testing at home. Further information about this webinar will be provided closer to the time.
For full guidance about the new testing arrangements, including information on funding and delivery arrangements, please refer to the rapid testing sharing platform. On this platform you will find three coloured handbooks:
- Orange - why and when you should do testing, as well as the funding available
- Green - how to set up testing on-site at your school or college
- Blue - how to transition your staff to testing at home
Vaccine Lesson Resources
A group of Hackney teachers have developed a schools resource to teach pupils from KS2-5 about the science and history of vaccines, how the COVID-19 vaccine works, and why it is important that everybody takes the vaccines that are offered to them. The resources can be found here [12MB] .
School Trips
Please see below a probable road map for school trips from Evolve. It is subject to change when the DfE provide more guidance. As it stands, the DfE still advise against all educational visits but this image shows when it is likely that trips can recommence.
National Careers Week
To focus on careers this week, schools may wish to share this guide [2MB] with parent friendly guide to careers with their parents and carers. For more information please visit - New NCW Homepage - National Careers Week
Psychological First Aid training
On (22 February), Public Health England (PHE) launched a new online Psychological First Aid (PFA) training course on how to provide practical and emotional support to children and young people affected by coronavirus, or other emergencies or crisis situations.
The course will equip those completing the training to better identify children that are in distress and provide support to help them feel safe, connected and able to take steps to help themselves. Prior knowledge or experience is not required as this introductory course will teach you the key principles of giving PFA to children and young people in crisis situations.
The course is free and available for all frontline workers such as teachers, health and social workers, charity and community volunteers and anyone who cares for or is regularly in contact with children and young people aged up to 25, including parents and caregivers.
Sign-up: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/psychological-first-aid-for-children-and-young-people
Youth Mental Health First Aid & Mental Health First Aid Champion Training Opportunities
We have been made aware that there is still the opportunity to take part in the two-day Youth MHFA course and one-day MHFA Champion course training, which is available for all London state funded schools, colleges and pupil referral units. All courses are being delivered online and are available for all London state funded education settings.
The Learning & Development team are interested in hearing from schools about whether schools are interested in accessing these courses between April to July 2021. Please contact Learning and Development by emailing learninganddevelopment@hillingdon.gov.uk if you are interested.
Pictures to share
Our communications team are keen to gather some pictures from schools of anything they have been doing over the past year, since the original lockdown came into force. They are hoping to do a social media post about it to share with residents and to thank schools for their hard work. Please send your pictures to education@hillingdon.gov.uk (please ensure you have relevant GDPR permissions or alternatively you can send photos of children's work for example).
Ofsted pause inspections of schools and colleges for the week beginning 8 March
Remote monitoring inspections of schools graded 'inadequate' or 'requires improvement' and further education providers began on 25 January, with a particular focus on how well children and learners are being educated remotely. These inspections are not graded. Ofsted will pause their inspections of schools and colleges for the week beginning 8 March, while they are focused on reopening to all pupils and students. For the rest of the term, Ofsted will continue to carry out monitoring inspections remotely by default. However, they will carry out on-site inspections if they have any immediate concerns - for example, about safeguarding or the leadership of a school or college.
Safeguarding
Updated guidance for keeping children safe online
We have updated our guidance for parents and carers to keep children safe online. The measures announced over recent weeks to tackle coronavirus (COVID-19), although essential, have disrupted people's day-to-day lives.
As a result of these necessary measures, almost all of us are likely to be spending more time online, including children. This guidance contains resources for parents and carers to help keep their children safe online.
Regards,
Dan
