10/10/2022 - Message from the Director of Education
FAO: All Schools / All Phases
Headteacher/Principal,
I hope you had a good weekend and enjoying the autumnal weather and colours. The DfE have been actively visiting Enfield in the past weeks with two officials visiting Chace Secondary School, Oaktree and Debohun Primary School – and a virtual event at Orchardside attended by the DfE’s permanent secretary and 629 other participants from schools and the department to look at their work with Taskforce funding. Ofsted are also out and about and visited two schools last week. As I am sure you are aware, today is mental health awareness day and I am sure many of us in one way or another have been touched by mental health issues within families, friends, work colleagues and children.
In terms of SEYIS moving forward, the intention is from April 2023, to move to termly visits as required by School Improvement Advisers at no cost to local authority maintained schools to include headteacher performance management at no cost to the school (if the school wishes this). The exact detail needs to be finalised but this will be in place from the summer term next year. This is in recognition of the costs to schools of these services and also the local authority’s view of the importance of working closely with, supporting as needed and listening to schools about key education issues.
i) Headteachers Briefing – please find attached the slides from the last briefing. These can also be found on the Enfield Hub. The next briefing is on the 25th November at 10am.
ii) Intimate Care – please find attached draft guidance on intimate care and a sample policy. Issues surrounding intimate care have arisen in a couple of schools recently so we though it may be helpful to circulate guidance on this – the policy is there for schools to use and adapt as necessary.
iii) Part-time timetable guidance – as you aware this was circulated in my last message to headteachers. To clarify, schools can use part-time timetables and this is clear in the guidance but they are supposed to be time-bonded and reviewed regularly – and the local authority has to monitor their use under its safeguarding duty. Sarah Shaughnessy who is a headteacher representative on the SEND Partnership Board (Headteacher of Meridian Angel Primary School) has said she will collate any views/thoughts on the policy and will feedback after half-term (thanks Sarah).
iv) Gamechanger Grants – these small grants can be available for schools to provide some resource for pupils to take forward ideas to support their school or community. 5 Enfield schools have already been selected by the GLA to receive small £400 grants but apparently more are available. Please see the attachment labelled “Wider Comms for Enfield Schools”.
v) Nurture UK opportunity - Enfield has been asked to select 10 schools to work with Nurture UK who have been commissioned by the Violence Reduction Unit (see attachment and FAQ attachment)). The intention is to work with schools on reducing suspensions/exclusions and to improve attendance, behaviour and attainment. This is free to schools being VRU funded. The timescale to be involved is very short with introductory workshops taking place this week and next Monday (my meeting with the VRU took place on Friday). If your school wishes to be involved, could you contact me as soon as possible.
vi) Cyber Security Audit - As you aware cyber security is extremely important for schools – in my previous authority several schools had ransomware attacks and Hackney local authority had a very serious security breach causing immense problems. In light of this, Enfield community and foundation schools (not academies) will be part of a cyber security audit which will be starting this week. A detailed questionnaire will be sent to schools asking for a range of information relating to Cyber security. The objective is to support schools in their duty of care to the school community and also to minimise financial and reputational risk.
vii) School Attendance - please find attached a useful guide to the changes (non-statutory) in responsibilities for attendance. Please note the expectation that each school has an attendance policy published on their website.
viii) Ukraine funding - the first tranche of funds have come through for schools who received children through the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Information on the schools eligible has been received from the government. We recognise that quite a few schools have received Ukrainian pupils but the funding rules dictate that only pupils who have come to the UK through this route are eligible for funding.
ix) SEND Summit - due to the number of concerns raised by schools and by the SEND partnership, the local authority will be organising a SEND summit to examine some of the key issues and try to identify some solutions. There are considerable concerns about the shortage of speech therapists and other specialist staff, there are concerns about waiting lists and also about the addressing the number of and range of complex needs in schools. From our school visits, it is clear that headteachers and staff are pleased about the range of initiatives such as ECASS, E-TIPS and the expansion of EASA – and also the increase in places and the introduction of more ARPs (now numbering 19) and units (now numbering 3) but a lot more needs to be done to address the needs of schools, parents and children. A date for this will be announced shortly.
In terms of my own mental health, I spent most of Sunday afternoon in the sunshine on my allotment digging up weeds, collecting spinach and chard and my last Turkish Turban squash. I needed to do this to console myself after a tennis doubles defeat on Sunday morning although it was against the number one pairing in my club. These activities of course take me away from thinking about my job and I hope help my own mental health.
As I said, I hope you too were able to do similar or indeed different activities to help clear minds!! I hope you have a good week.
Best wishes
Peter Nathan
Director of Education
People Department
Enfield Council
Direct line: 020 83795492