UPDATE NO 427 30 October 2020

Silver Linings Project – Call for Evidence deadline 13 November

The Call for Evidence is now open. Either download the document and return to Richard Tyndall (contact details below) or call him to discuss your idea for inclusion in the Silver Linings Project.

The call is open to all sections of Children’s Services from mainstream schools to special schools to early years to early help to children’s social care to youth justice teams to adoption to fostering.

Here’s a link to a similar piece of work already undertaken by our colleagues in the London LIIA

The Silver Linings Project page is now live. The Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and subsequent adjustments to find Covid-secure ways of working have driven new thinking about ways to deliver Children’s Services, in schools, in early help and in children’s social care.

The aim of the Silver Linings project is to capture and publicise the best of these innovative responses, in an attempt to embed these new and better ways or working into the “new normal”.

Please download the document and return it before 13 November 2020.

Vulnerable children and young people survey

The DfE has published Waves 1-10 of the vulnerable children and young people survey. This is a summary of the results of local authority surveys in England to help understand the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on children’s social care.

The survey has been collected forthnightly since the start of the pandemic and includes:

• Contacts with social workers
• Workforce data
• Placement cost information
• Referral/demand data

The full report is here.

Keeping children safe in out-of-school settings

The DfE published Keeping children safe in out-of-school settings on 21 October.

It is a voluntary code of safeguarding practice for out-of-school settings (OOSS).

It is intended to support providers of OOSS. It covers advice on what policies and procedures providers should have in place for health and safety, safeguarding and child protection, staff suitability, and governance.

The guidance for parents and carers is intended to help parents choose a safer setting for their child. There is a range of promotional material also available.

The guidance covers:

• community activities
• after-school clubs
• supplementary schools
• tuition
• music lessons
• sports training
• other activities for children that take place without their parents’ or carers’ supervision, that are not a:

school, college, 16 to 19 college, provider caring for children under 8 years old registered with Ofsted or a childminder agency

Elective Home Education – new materials from DfE

Last week the DfE published All you need to know about home-schooling and elective home education (EHE) advice to parents.

This is designed to be shared with parents, schools, social workers and local authorities (LAs), where the option of EHE is raised. The document is intended to make clear implications of withdrawing their child from school and the challenge involved in providing EHE.

The piece links to the DfE Guidance, which is unchanged since it was published in April 2019.

Karl Dixon-Myers at DfE has produced a draft of a note for LAs and those who work with children to set out how the DfE expects those with duties to ensure children receive a suitable education to use their powers to engage with parents who are considering EHE. 

Chris Owen (contact details below) and the CME group are co-ordinating responses from across the SESLIP area, and will establish a constructive dialogue with DfE colleagues about the detail of this challenging topic.

Adult Continuing Health Care and Children’s Continuing Care – Monday 9 November 2:00-4:00

This will be an opportunity to hear from Luke Clements (Cerebra Professor of Law at Leeds University) who is a leading academic and solicitor working in this area of public law. 

The intention is to focus the discussion on those people moving from children’s to adult services and on children where continuing care applies. Luke will look at the respective responsibilities of CCGs and social care and there will be an opportunity to ask questions. 

Keith Hinkley, Director of Social Care and Health at East Sussex County Council and co-chair of the SE ADASS branch will chair the meeting. 

If you want to book a place please can you contact janesimmons.seadass@gmail.com by close of play Thursday 5 November. 

Updated DfE C-19 Guidance for Schools

On Thursday 22 October, the DfE posted significant updates to its guidance for full opening of schools, including about

• allowing pupils to where additional layers of clothing in colder classrooms,
• immediate remote learning for those self-isolating and
• additional prevention measures when schools are in high (tier 2) or very high (tier 3) alert areas. 

On Tuesday 20 October, the DfE posted further details about the daily return the DfE is asking schools, colleges and other settings to submit.

The changes refer to who needs to complete the form, to include special post-16 institutions; also an updated list of questions on the form for further education settings.

See also updated (16 October) Guidance on Face Coverings in Education 

DfE Consultation on Regulation of Independent Educational Institutions – closes 27 November

This consultation was withdrawn on 7 May 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak and was relaunched on 13 October 2020.

If you have already responded to this consultation, your feedback will still be considered and you do not need to resubmit your response. The consultation will now close on 27 November 2020.

You can respond online here, or contact the DfE team at 0370 000 2288 or IndependentSchools.CONSULTATION@education.gov.uk

The DfE is consulting about three proposed changes to the way in which independent educational settings in England, including independent schools, are regulated.

• expanding the categories of full-time institutions that will be regulated in the same way that independent schools are currently regulated, and defining the term ‘full-time’
• changing the basis for how some appeals by institutions against enforcement action are determined by the court
• revising the system for approving ‘material changes’ to the registered details of independent educational institutions

Ed Tech Demonstrator Programme

Forthcoming programmes are listed here.

The full archive of programmes is here. 

Data to Insight – update

Alastair Lee (contact details below) writes:

Data to Insight has supported Social Finance, with funding from MHCLG, to develop a demand modelling tool in Microsoft Excel. The tool helps LAs use their existing Annex A data to model future demand for services in the wake of COVID. The tool is available from the ChAT Knowledge Hub group, and a blog outlining the development process and an overview of the tool itself is now live on MHCLG’s Medium page.

Please see the Local Digital website or contact Alastair Lee (details below) for further information.

Alistair Herbert, Data to Insight Manager, introduces the tool which tries to model demand for post COVID-19 surge in children’s services. He acknowledges Kent’s leading role, and the collaboration of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, Isle of Wight and Slough, as well as other partners outside the SESLIP area.

The Data to Insight project (a national project hosted by SESLIP) will monitor LAs’ experiences with using the tool, and, following feedback, revisit the project later this year to look at extending its usefulness into the future as a basic approach to demand modelling.

UTCs and their impact on Technical and Vocational Education

LSE’s Centre for Vocation Education Research has published Closing the Gap Between Vocational and General Education? Evidence from University Technical Colleges in England which addresses the question have UTCs improved technical and vocational education? 

The key finding is:

For those pupils who enter the UTC at a non-standard transition age of 14, UTCs dramatically reduce their academic achievement on national exams at age 16. However, for students who enter at a more conventional transition age of 16, UTCs boost vocational achievement without harming academic achievement. 

The full paper is here

Future dates for Network meetings

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

QA Network: Wednesday 9 December. Following the recent meeting of the network, new confidential documents have been posted on the QA restricted pages – access to these pages and more information from Diane Williamson (contact details below)

SEND SE19: more information from Tracey Maytas (contact details below)

Data Benchmarking: Thursday 10 December 2020. More information from Alastair Lee (contact details below)

AD Education: Friday 27 November 2020 – 10.00am to 12.00noon – more information from Chris Owen (contact details below)

Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board: more information from Rebecca Eligon (contact details below)