23 November 2018 weekly update

Dear Colleagues

National Children and Adult Services Conference 2018

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the above conference with my Cabinet Member, Roger Gough. The conference is the annual opportunity for those with an interest in social care, children’s services, education, health and related fields to network with peers and to hear the very latest thinking on key policy and improvement agendas. Here are a few highlights which may be of interest. On day one, Amanda Spielman and Yvette Stanley from Ofsted, spoke about new inspection frameworks for schools and local authorities. Amanda’s speech can be found here. A reminder that Claire Prince, HMI, will be outlining the new school Inspection Framework at my briefings on 26 November and 4 December.

During the session, Amanda spoke about missing children and the threat of County Lines before announcing the publication of the findings from Ofsted’s most recent joint targeted area inspection into children who are criminally exploited. Later that day, in a very informative session about child poverty, ADCS President, Stuart Gallimore spoke about the rising numbers of children living in poverty, many of whom are in working households and the challenges this presents to local authorities. These are issues that resonate with all of us.

As part of the second day I spoke to the conference about children’s services funding and the many and complex pressures impacting on children’s services and the difficult choices that local authorities are having to make in meeting rising demand with a lack of adequate funding available. Finally, the Minister of State of Children and Families, Nadhim Zahawi addressed the conference and acknowledged that High Needs and SEND funding is a major challenge which the government are looking at closely at. He also spoke about working closely with the sector and announced the opening of the bidding window for the early outcomes fund for local authorities in improving early language outcomes - his full speech can be found here.

The DfE’s 7 Pledges to tackle teacher workload

The government has responded to a report from the workload advisory group about how to support teachers, trustees, governors and local authorities to cut workload in schools. The key recommendations were as follows:

1. Fewer regular data drops for local authorities and government
2. Research into whether schools need a ‘data collection tool’
3. New guidance on logging pupil behaviour
4. Trustees and local authorities not to use predictions data to hold schools to account
5. New research on the impact of reporting pupil premium
6. Performance management guidance to be updated so teachers aren’t judged solely on data
7. New governance training on workload.

A full version of the key recommendations and report can be found here

Christmas card competition

And finally, with Christmas just around the corner, I am excited to launch the 2018 Kelsi Christmas card competition.

I would like to encourage all Kent Primary school children to take part in designing our annual Christmas cards. This exciting opportunity should get children in the creative mood ahead of the Christmas festivities.

For this year, there will be two winning designs which will become the official card for Roger Gough, Cabinet Member and the other for myself.

As a thank you from us the two winning designers will each receive a £20 book voucher and three highly commended will each receive a £10 book voucher.

The competition is open to all children aged 4 to 11, we would love to get as many Primary aged school children involved as possible, and hope that your school will be a part of it.

Closing date for entries is Friday 7 December - so there’s still time to get creative.

Please send your completed designs to:

CYPE Office, Room 1.60, Sessions House, Maidstone, ME14 1XQ. Alternatively, you can send your scanned copies to kelsi@kent.gov.uk.

Please include: Child’s name, age, school name, and a contact number for the school.

Winners will be announced in the Kelsi e-bulletin on Thursday 13 December. The winning designs will be sent to all schools in Kent before the end of term.

Matt Dunkley CBE
Corporate Director
Children, Young People and Education