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Governance Schools

Independent review of behaviour in schools

Tom Bennett, behaviour expert, has produced an independent review on behaviour management in schools entitled Creating a culture: how schools can optimise behaviour (external link)

The report draws on the typical factors used by schools to establish effective behaviour systems, stressing the importance of accountability and the key role governors play in supporting an effective school culture. The review made the following six recommendations for school leaders:

 

  • designing the culture which is supportive of good conduct
  • creating a vision of the school culture which is commonly understood
  • making behaviour a whole school focus
  • developing social norms which encourage good behaviour
  • communicating that culture to the school by explaining and promoting its shared values
  • ensuring that the leadership team is loyal and well-supported to perform their roles.

 

The government welcomed the review in a letter from Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening. The letter confirmed that the government would be taking a number of measures to give school leaders the knowledge and skills they need to deal with bad behaviour.

Tom_Bennett_Independent_Review_of_Behaviour_in_Schools

Categories
Governance

The right people around the table – new recruitment guide

A new recruitment guide has been published for the Inspiring Governance service. ‘The right people around the table’ is a practical guide designed to help school governors and trustees plan and carry out recruitment and induction. The guide highlights good practice for induction, training and succession. Five short chapters cover:

  • Evaluating: composition and current practice
  • Recruiting: attracting good candidates
  • Appointing: interviewing and references
  • Inducting: training and support
  • Succession planning: ensuring there is leadership of the board     

The guide is designed to complement the Inspiring Governance, which is a free online recruitment service connecting volunteers interested in serving as governors and trustees with schools who are looking for new recruits. Inspiring Governance is funded by the Department for Education and run by the charity Education and Employers in partnership with the National Governance Association.

Find out more here and download ‘the right people around the table’ (external link)

Categories
Governance

Merger creates Education and Skills Funding Agency

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) is merging with the Skills Funding Agency to form the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) (external link)

The EFA is an executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE), responsible for all revenue and capital funding for schools. It is charged with acting on behalf of the Secretary of State with regard to academies’ financial affairs and allocates revenue funding directly to academies as well as distributing maintained schools’ revenue funding to local authorities.

The new ESFA will retain these functions and also have responsibility for overseeing funding for post-16 education and training, apprenticeships, and adult education.

Peter Lauener is the current chief executive of both agencies. He intends to retire following the merger but will remain in the role until a permanent replacement is in place.

Categories
Governance

RAISEonline update

Further to information provided in an earlier bulletin, the Department for Education has confirmed that the new service will provide schools and other existing user groups with detailed performance analysis to support local school improvement as a replacement to RAISEonline.  It is hoped that this will be ready in late April/early May. The name of the new service will be announced as soon as confirmed.

The current RAISEonline service will be available until 31 July 2017. This will allow users to familiarise themselves with the new service and provide feedback before the current one is taken offline.  

During this period of dual running the DfE will continue to develop the new service and plan to release an updated version in July 2017.  Also during this time feedback  will be sought from the DfE through formal testing and user surveys. 

Ofsted Inspectors will continue to use the data available in the existing summary report and inspection dashboard to prepare for inspections, until 2017 datasets are released in the autumn term.

Categories
Schools

Apprenticeship Levy and Targets – Update 3

Please see the latest update attached and a useful ‘schools guide to apprenticeship reforms’ document also attached.  

The Apprenticeship Levy starts in April!   For more information or advice contact: Maxine Sobers maxine.sobers@haringey.gov.uk

 

Schools__guide_to_apprenticeship_reforms

Apprentice levy Schools update 3

Categories
Schools

Tennis programme for primary schools at the New River Tennis Centre

The New River Tennis Centre at New River Sports & Fitness is promoting tennis to children in Haringey. It is offering 6 weeks of free tennis coaching to all Haringey schools in partnership with Haringey Council. For children in Reception to year 5, the course offers the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of tennis and play for an hour a week.

The centre is also offering a Junior Tennis after school programme.

To find out more contact: Shenikia Green,Sport and Community Development Manager at Fusion.
Email: shenikia.green@fusion-lifestyle.com Telephone: 07747 482183.

 

Categories
Health and Safety Schools

Message from Christina Andrew

Dear Colleagues

 

In light of the terror attack in Westminster last Wednesday, conversations and conjecture will likely be taking place in school amongst pupils of all ages. Haringey is a place where local communities get on with each other and we have every confidence that this will continue to be the case across the board. We would like to ensure that schools are open about conversations regarding the attack, and in line with the Prevent Duty, are creating a safe space for young people to express their thoughts and feelings on what has happened. Please remember that OFSTED expects educational settings to create safe spaces for debate and dialogue, using both formal and informal opportunities to address the issue. Consider the use of subject areas that lend themselves naturally to this issue such as History, RE, PSHE and citizenship.

 

Please also consider the guidance below:

·        Bring the topic up with students in an age-appropriate way. This attack goes against the values of the UK and that of your school. We need to ensure the school is the safest space to talk, debate and learn about significant political and news events, including awful acts like the one that took place yesterday.

·       Reassure students (particularly with the younger students). The chances of being harmed by a terrorist attack is still very, very low. There will also be a heightened police presence over the course of the next few days and weeks. This is a result of the ongoing efforts to protect people rather than a reaction to intelligence or a specific known risk.

·        If the attack does turn out to be Islamist, we all know how far away this kind of act is from Islam and is absolutely not an accurate reflection of what Islam teaches.

·       If you do become aware of pupils or parents glorifying the attack in any way, please follow normal Prevent safeguarding procedures and consider contacting our Prevent Lead, Christina Andrew at Christina.andrew@haringey.gov.uk  telephone 020 8489 1280

·         Likewise, if you pick up on any discrimination, this should be dealt with using your behavioural policy, and if there are reports of hate crime either taking place within school, or being fed back from the home / community environment, they should be reported to police either through 101 (for retrospective reports) or 999 (where a hate crime is taking place).

 

As mentioned above, locally we will see an increase in police patrols over the course of this week, particularly at key sights deemed to be vulnerable, and increased dialogue with local communities.  We would appreciate feedback on any tensions or concerns you may pick up on, but we remain confident that the strong community cohesion we enjoy in this borough will see individuals and communities coming together to process yesterday’s attack in a supportive way.

 

Christina Andrew

Acting Strategic Lead Communities

Categories
School Admissions Schools

Reception/Junior admissions – National Offer Day 2017

Primary, Infant and Junior schools only

Offer day this year will be Tuesday 18 April 2017 (the nearest working day to 16 April), which is immediately following Easter Monday.

Preferences – Please see the attached document for the total number of Reception preferences you have received from on-time applicants for your school by planning area (including from those applicants resident outside Haringey).

Reception 2011-17 Preference info by PAs

Offers – We will send you a final offer list on the week ending the 14 April. The vast majority of parents will be notified of their school place by email and will be directed to our website to view their offer letter. This will happen at 5pm on 18 April and will be triggered by the PAN London e-admissions system. You must not release this information prior to 5pm on national offer day as it is not fair on other families waiting to hear about their school place. The call centre will be expecting to receive calls from parents on the day following national offer day.

Please be aware that in the past the Pan London eAdmissions system has experienced problems with certain email providers (Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and BTinternet) delivering emails. To avoid this happening to you, there is an alternative way of accessing the information:

  • Parents/carers can log on to the e-admissions system with the username and password they used to make their application.
  • Download the ParentComms app to a mobile device, to receive push notifications from the eAdmissions website. Go to your app store and register your eAdmissions username and password.

After offer day we will continue to send you updated lists on a fortnightly basis as places are declined and new offers are made.

For any queries, please contact Carlo Kodsi  Carlo.Kodsi@haringey.gov.uk

Categories
Consultation Governance School Admissions Schools

St Mary's CofE (N8) – Adjustment to published admission number for entry in 2017

Dear Colleagues,

We have written to all relevant schools within the local area to St Mary’s CE Primary School (N8) to set out our intention to seek approval from the Schools Adjudicator to decrease the planned admission number (PAN) for St Mary’s CE Primary (N8) for the incoming Reception 2017 cohort (year of entry). This decrease will reduce the number of reception places available at the school for September 2017 from 90 places to 60 places

Under the provisions of The School Admissions Code (2014) we are required to inform all schools within the relevant area where we propose a change to the determined admission arrangements, including a referral to the Schools Adjudicator to decrease the PAN.

We are proposing a temporary reduction in the PAN at St Mary’s CE (N8) because we expect to have sufficiency of local places for 2017 based on this reduced number.

Please let me know if you have any comments on this proposal by no later than 3 April 2017. 

Carlo Kodsi Carlo.Kodsi@haringey.gov.uk  

Categories
Governance Schools

Communications Select Committee: ‘Growing up with the internet’

The House of Lords Select Committee on Communications has published its report amid an inquiry into children’s access to, and use of, the internet. The report outlines the responsibilities of, and a range of recommendations to better inform, parents and carers; regulators, law enforcement and civil society; schools; industry; and the Government.

Governing boards have a legal responsibility to safeguard children in their schools and provide a broad and balanced curriculum. Current statutory guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) –  Keeping Children Safe in Education (external link) – has gone further than it ever has, to highlight the prevalence of children’s online activity, and the duties on governing boards to ensure appropriate filtering and monitoring systems are in place. The guidance also includes a dedicated annex, outlining additional information to help governing boards fulfil their responsibilities.

Recent changes to the computer science curriculum, personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education, and relationships and sex education (RSE) also go some way of promoting teaching online safety and appropriate use of the internet.  The Department for Education has recently made an announcement (external link)  about making RSE compulsory in all schools, but this has not yet come into force (and parents still have the right to withdraw their child).