Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to this week’s issue of Education Essex.
Firstly, we have received information from Essex Policeregarding suspicious letters and would like to draw your attention to this information. Please alert the police if you are in receipt of any suspicious package.
Congratulations to Rachel Callaghan, head at Katherine Semar Junior School, and all her colleagues on the outstanding judgment in the school’s inspection.
This week you will have received information about breakfast meetings which are taking place throughout October for Infant, Junior and Primary headteachers concerning the latest Ofsted Inspection Framework. Please see the item below which includes a letter and booking form for you to complete and send to Sally Moorcock to secure your place.
Please see the reminder below regarding the Home to School Transport formal consultation regarding the discretionary elements of the policy for the service. We are welcoming feedback and will consider all responses received.Please provide feedback by Friday 25 October 2013.
Finally, we are collecting nominated colleagues in all schools to receive notifications regarding domestic violence, mentioned in Issue 1. Thank you to thoseschools which have provided contact details for the pilot scheme. Please send contact details including a secure email address (e.g. ending in essex.sch.uk or including your school name) to the Schools Communicationteam.
In this week’s issue:
School Updates
- Important Alert from Essex Police
- Ofsted Inspection Framework Breakfast Meetings Update
- SPAM ALERT - Amazon, DHL – fictitious invoices
- Free Early Education Entitlement for two-year-olds (FEEE2)
- Home to School Transport Consultation
- School Workforce Census Statutory Return Reminder
- Advice on the use of Primary Sport Premium Funding
- News from the Secondary Schools Excellence Networks – meetings in November and December
- SENCO Bulletin – 8 October 2013
- Essex Teaching Awards
- Long Service Awards
- PTA Workshop - Maximising your Fundraising Potential Workshop
- Training Opportunities with Adult Community Learning
- Essex Learning Outside the Classroom Conference
- Stranger Danger
- Clore Poetry & Literature Awards
- Literacy Heroes
- Essex Junior Chess Association (EJCA)
Tim Coulson
Director of Education and Learning
School Updates
- Important Alert from Essex Police
- Ofsted Inspection Framework Breakfast Meetings Update
- SPAM ALERT - Amazon, DHL – fictitious invoices
- Free Early Education Entitlement for two-year-olds (FEEE2)
- Home to School Transport Consultation
- School Workforce Census Statutory Return Reminder
- Advice on the use of Primary Sport Premium Funding
Audience:All Staff
Phase:All Phases
School Type:All
Essex Police is investigating a number of suspicious letters containing white powder, which have been received at addresses in the county over the past week. Specialist officers attended each incident and the powder was identified as harmless.
None of the recipients have suffered any ill effects but some were understandably upset and anxious by the circumstances. We want to emphasise that all the letters to date have been harmless. However, if anyone receives an envelope that they feel is suspicious, then they should contact police immediately.
Any item found to contain white powder or other substance that they are unsure of, should be left in side, with doors and windows shut and any fans or air-conditioning switched off. Anyone who has had contact with the white powder should be isolated until police attend and are able to provide reassurance.
Anyone with information regarding these incidents should contact Essex Police on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.
Ofsted Inspection Framework Breakfast Meetings Update
Audience:Headteacher
Phase:InfantJuniorPrimary
School Type:All
Breakfast briefing meetings for headteachers regarding changes to the Ofsted Inspection Framework, particularly changes in the focus of inspections, are taking place throughout October.
Please note time changes for meetings for North East Essex schools highlighted in red on the updated letter attached. All meetings for North East Essex schools now begin at 8am.
To indicate which meeting you would like to attend and to secure a place please complete the booking form, which is provided with the attached letter.
Please return completed booking forms by email or fax to:
Contact: Sally Moorcock, Business Support Administrator
Fax: 01245 436 395
Email:
SPAM ALERT - Amazon, DHL – fictitious invoices
Audience:Administration/ Finance
Phase:All Phases
School Type:All
There is currently a high volume of spam emails doing the rounds, recent examples purporting to be from Amazon.co.uk and DHL amongst others. These messages contain what looks like an order number in the subject and an invoice in the attachment. On a similar note schools are also receiving phone calls chasing payment of fictitious invoices.No orders were ever placed with the company. Please see the attached guidancefor further information.
This alert is to remind schools to be vigilant when processing invoices and to only pay suppliers who have provided goods following specific orders from the school.
Free Early Education Entitlement for two-year-olds (FEEE2)
Audience:Headteacher
Phase:NurseryEYFSInfantPrimary
School Type:All
Unfortunately there has been a very limited response from schools for these sessions, and therefore a decision has been made to postpone them to later in the academic year.Any school that has already applied for a place at one of the sessions will be contacted and offered an individual information sharing/discussion visit.
For further information or if your school is interested in finding out more about participation in FEEE2:
Contact: Kath Hardy, Intervention and Commissioning Officer
Email:
Home to School Transport Consultation
Audience:Headteacher/ All Staff
Phase:All Phases
School Type:All
We are now mid-way through the formal public consultation into the discretionary elements of Essex County Council’s home to school transport policy.It is important youread and understand the proposals and respond to the consultation, as the changes proposed are likely to impact on transport being provided to your school.
The current expenditure for ensuring children across the county can attend schools is currently over £25millon, however maintaining expenditure at this level is unsustainable in the current economic climate. Therefore, the council is looking at where efficiency savings can be made.
The Local Authority’s statutory responsibilities around the provision of home to school transport are not affected by the consultation; however a number of the discretionary elements of the existing policy are under review.These include:
- Changing the reference to catchment area within the assessment of entitlement to home to school transport policy and removing the use of joint catchment areas and instead only provide transport to the nearest school to the home address where statutory walking distances are met
- Removing existing transport from routes which are now deemed safe walking routes
- Withdrawing the provision of transport to families on a low income whose child(ren) attend a selective (grammar) school
- Introducing a means tested assessment for transport provided to pupils in exceptional circumstances
- Introducing a new application window for Home to School Transport applications
- Reviewing existing Post 16 transport provision
Due to the volume of replies expected, responses will not be given to individual comments or enquiries, but will be taken into account as part of the wider consultation process.
School Workforce Census Statutory Return Reminder
Audience:Human Resources/ Finance
Phase:All Phases
School Type:All
Congratulations to Kings Road Primary School who are the first of our Essex schools to upload their data to the familiarisation blade
Please note the below the following dates for the School Workforce Census:
SCHOOL WORKFORCE CENSUS DAY Thursday 7 November 2013
Maintained schools should upload their census files to COLLECT by Friday 22 November 2013.
Please note, Academies will be advised by the Department of Education of the date by which their return should be submitted.
All schools are reminded that COLLECT is now accessed through the “Secure Access” web portal at:
To ensure you are prepared please check that you know your password as new login requests can take up to 7 days to be processed.
Familiarisation blade is now live – log into COLLECT and get ahead!
Visit the School Workforce Census page for the new 2013 School User Guidance.
For further information:
Contact: School Workforce Team
Email:
Telephone:01245 434140
Visit: School Workforce Census, Essex Schools Infolink
Advice on the use of Primary Sport Premium Funding
Audience: Headteacher/ PE Coordinator
Phase:All Phases
School Type:All
Active Essex and Essex County Council are extremely pleased that the Prime Minister announced a significant boost in funding for PE and Sport in our primary Schools.
In Essex alone this amounts to around £4 million in extra funding going directly to head teachers who know best how to meet their pupils’ needs.
Schools should see this funding enter their budgets over the next month within the ‘Additional Grants for Schools’. This will come either from the Local Authority or directly for Academies.
Active Essex and Essex County Council are mindful that headteachers and Schools may need support and guidance when making such decision on utilising this funding. The link provided leads to the first of a monthly Active Essex Primary PE & School Sport Bulletin.Within this Primary Sport Premium, School Games and Heart Foundation support and resources will be highlighted.
Read more about the Primary Sport premium
Read our Active Essex Primary School’s Bulletin
Back to top
Continuous Professional Development
- News from the Secondary Schools Excellence Networks – meetings in November and December
- SENCO Bulletin – 8 October 2013
- Essex Teaching Awards
- Long Service Awards
- PTA Workshop - Maximising your Fundraising Potential Workshop
- Training Opportunities with Adult Community Learning
- Essex Learning Outside the Classroom Conference
Audience:Headteacher/ Curriculum Leaders/ Heads of Department/ Subject Teachers
Phase:SecondaryPost 16
School Type:All
Please see the attached Autumn programmewhich has expanded to include many more subjects.Dates and venues for the Autumn meetings are now finalised and bookings can be made for all the events listed via theSchools Learning and Development professional development website.
To be the first to receive information for forthcoming twilight meetings, please contact the Education Consultancy Teamto request to join the mailing list for latest news and updates.
For further information or to sign up to the mailing list:
Contact: Paul Stevenson, Robin Shakespeare, Chris Haines, Education Consultancy Team, Schools Learning and Development
Email:
Telephone: 01245 436707
SENCO Bulletin – 8 October 2013
Audience:SENCO
Phase:All Phases
School Type:All
Have a look at the latest edition of the SENCO Bulletinavailable on Essex Schools Infolink for news on:
STOP PRESS: DRAFT CODE OF PRACTICE RELEASED FOR CONSULTATION - SEE BULLETIN FOR MORE DETAILS
- ‘Let’s get ….’ courses to designed for TAs new to the role of supporting pupils with SEN
- SENCO up-date meetings
- Ofsted Inspection Framework (2013) and the Teachers’ Standards (2013)
- The Ofsted Compliant Provision Review
- Clicker in your Classroom – a free presentation by Cath Marsh
Do not forget to book you place on theSecondary SENCO Conference (Wednesday 16 October 2013) and the Communications Connects Conference (Tuesday 5 November 2013)
Please contact us if you need any further information:
Contact: INSET Team
Telephone: 01268 632360
Visit: SENCO Bulletin, Essex Schools Infolink
Essex Teaching Awards
Audience: All Staff/ Pupils/ Parents and Carers
Phase:All Phases
School Type:All
Colleagues are encouraged to nominate outstanding practitioners in recognition of their dedication, inspirational work and achievement in educating young people in Essex.
Please share the attached flyer with colleagues and governors to raise awareness of the awards and help ensure colleagues are celebrated for their achievements. The nomination period is open until Friday 25 October 2013 and the further details including the nomination form can be found on the Essex Teaching Awardspage.
On Wednesday 22 January 2014 the first Essex Teaching Awards ceremony will take place where the winners will be announced.
For further information about the award categories and to submit a nomination:
Email:
Visit: Essex Teaching Awards
Long Service Awards
Audience:Headteacher
School Type:Maintained Schools
Action required: Nominations must be received by Friday 8 November 2013.
Do you have any members of staff who have worked in Essex schools for 25 years or more?If so, they are eligible to be nominated for a Long Service Award.
If you have a member of staff that you wish to nominate, please send details to , including title, first name(s), surname, job title and the start date of their service in Essex schools.The closing date for nominations is Friday 8 November 2013.Long Service certificates will be distributed to you towards the end of the autumn term for presentation to your colleagues.
Please note that to be eligible for nomination candidates should not have received a previous award from Essex County Council.
We regret that academy staff are not eligible for these awards.
For further information or if you have any queries:
Contact: Andrew Fairweather
Email:
Telephone: 01245 436835
PTA Workshop - Maximising your Fundraising Potential Workshop
Audience: PTA
Phase:All Phases
School Type:All
Maximising your Fundraising Potential Workshop takes place at 7pm on Wednesday 23 October 2013 at Stisted Academy, Braintree, and is facilitated by PTA-UK's Adviser for Eastern, Alison Allen
The workshop willfocus on all the basics of running a PTA and ensuring you maximise all opportunities to raisefunds for your school. It will look at initiativessuch as working with local businesses, company matched giving, Gift Aid, donations and applying to trusts and grant making foundations, as well as, the more traditional forms of fundraising, such as events.
You can help to set the agendas so be sure to tell Alison what you would like covered. The events also give you and your PTA colleagues the chance to meet with other local PTA representatives, to share and exchange good ideas and to understand what works well and why.
The event isfree and open to PTA-UK members and non-members alike.
For more information or to reserve your place(s)
Contact: Alison Allen, PTA-UK's Adviser for Eastern
Email:
Telephone: 01462 701310
Visit: PTA
Training Opportunities with Adult Community Learning
Audience: All Staff
Phase:All Phases
School Type:All
As a high-quality training provider,ACL offer a wide range of courses and training programmes aimed at meeting your school’s requirements and obligations under health and safety regulations.As part of Essex County Council, ACL is also the preferred supplier to council staff for all First Aid and Pediatric First Aid courses.
We offer courses at locations around the county if you have one or two staff members requiring training.However, we can alsoprovide a bespoke service for those schools and settings who have larger groups of staff requiring training during inset days.
We also offer training in a wide range of areas including Modern Foreign Language skills, including Makaton and British Sign Language; IT software and the latest awards in Supporting Teaching and Learning in Schools.Business Administration, Customer Service and Management training are also available.We also have specific training opportunities for volunteers working within the school and can offer guidance on recruiting and training an Apprentice.
Reduced prices are available for all Essex schools.Funding may be available for volunteers and some staff members, please ask us for further details:
Contact: Sarah Johnson or Simon Burwood
Email:
Telephone: 01621 874 363 or 01621 874 368
Essex Learning Outside the Classroom Conference
Audience: Headteacher/ Teachers/ NQT/ Key Stage Leaders
Phase:EYFSInfantJuniorPrimarySecondary
School Type:All
Essex Learning Outside the Classroom Conference takes place on Tuesday 22 October 2013 at Danbury Outdoors. Places are still available and booking early is advisable.