UPDATE NO 418 28 August 2020

Data to Insight – National Project – August 2020 Briefing

Data to Insight is a national sector led improvement project delivered through the South East Sector Led Improvement Programme (SESLIP), sponsored by Stuart Gallimore, with East Sussex as the lead local authority.

Our aim is to get local authorities to use data better by enabling resources to be shared that were developed for visualisation, analysis, benchmarking and forecasting. 

The project has been funded by the DfE and a progress briefing is available here

The work programme of the project is overseen by a partnership between SESLIP (Alastair Lee), the London Borough of Waltham Forest (Rashid Jussa), the London Borough of Wandsworth (Jean Malo), Brighton and Hove City Council (Daryl Perilli), Ofsted (Adam King) and Social Finance (Tom Rintoul).

A project manager, Alistair Herbert will take up post on 1 September 2020.

For further deatils, contact Alastair Lee (details below)

Wellbeing for Education Return

The DfE and DHSC have jointly written (4 August) to all LA Chief Executives announcing additional grant funding to assist LAs to work with local partners to tailor and deliver wellbeing and mental health training and support for education settings this autumn.

If you have any queries, please contact Wellbeing.EducationReturn@education.gov.uk

This is a support offer with two parts: a new, nationally developed training package for education staff; and funding for local authorities to appoint one or more local experts to work with local partners to adapt this training to your local context, deliver it to nominated staff in education settings, and provide ongoing advice and support until March 2021.

The letter includes a 13-page delivery pack explaining the scheme in detail.

Future dates for Network meetings

AD Safeguarding: Friday 11 September 2020 – more information from Mark Evans (contact details below) 

QA Network: Thursday 17 September 2020 – more information from Diane Williamson (contact details below)

Data Benchmarking: Tuesday 15 September 2020 – more information from Alastair Lee (contact details below)

Joint meeting of AD Education and SEND SE19: Friday 25 September 2020 – more information from Chris Owen or Tracey Maytas (contact details below)

Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board: Tuesday 20 October 2020 – more information from Rebecca Eligon (contact details below)

Coronavirus: children and young people’s mental health advice

DfE has updated the advice for parents and carers on looking after the mental health and wellbeing of children or young people during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. It includes translated documents in: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese CN, Chinese HK, French, Gujarati, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi and Urdu.

The guidance is available here: COVID-19: guidance on supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing

The advice is to help adults with caring responsibilities look after the mental health and wellbeing of children or young people, including those with additional needs and disabilities, during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

Guidance for looking after your own mental health and wellbeing is also available, and also translated into other languages.

For wider information on how to protect yourself and others, please see Coronavirus (COVID-19): what you need to do.

DfE publications concerning (mainly) schools

1. The latest guidance on financing for LA maintained schools, following consultation, and due for implementation from April 2021. 

2. Addendum to the admissions code and registration that adds a new category of non-attendance due to covid-19, such as self-isolation.

3. A further scheme for laptops for disadvantaged pupils affected by the need for shielding or local lockdown.

4. Overall figures for school capital allocations for 2020-21 shows a small overall increase, together with an increased shift towards MATs and away from LA maintained.

5. The latest DfE list of the timing for resumption of data collections for LAs and schools.