Included in this update:

• School closures due to extreme weather
• Falling Rolls Funding
• Proposed Community and Voluntary Controlled Published Admission Numbers 2023/2024
• REMINDER Statutory Autumn 2021 Phonics Year 2 check
• Public Health Healthy Child surveys: Deadline 14 December
• Early Education Entitlement - 30 Hours Places for Spring Term 2022
• 2 Year Funded Place - Early Education Entitlement
• Early Years and Childcare Parent and Provider Surveys November 2021
• Post 16 Sufficency Survey Reminder
• Services for Education Courses
• Subsidised THRIVE training for Birmingham schools

School closures due to extreme weather

Last week headteachers were emailed a letter that confirmed Birmingham City Council’s recommended arrangements for closing its maintained schools in the event of severe weather.

The arrangements should make it easier for Headteachers to manage what can sometimes be difficult and unpredictable circumstances in the interests of pupils, parents and staff.

If you did not receive this letter, or have any queries, please contact School and Governor Support (school,support@birmingham.gov.uk). 

Falling Rolls Funding

As you may be aware, each year BCC asks schools with falling rolls to submit their business cases following October Census to access falling rolls fund. The criteria to access this fund is set and mandated by the DfE which includes the requirement for the school to be Good or Outstanding.

For the current financial year schools must continue to meet all criteria including being Good or Outstanding in order to access the Falling Pupil fund as agreed by Schools Forum in December 2020.

We are in the process of taking our papers outlining our Growth and Falling Roll Funding requirements and any proposed changes to the criteria for the financial year 22/23 to Schools Forum in December. As well as identifying the total amount of funding required for 22/23, the paper also seeks Schools Forum permission to accept applications for falling roll funding from schools that are less than Good.

Subject to Forum’s approval and in line with DfE guidance, these applications will then be forwarded to the DfE for the final decision on a case by case basis. It is important to note that schools will still have demonstrate that they meet all other criteria.

Proposed Community and Voluntary Controlled Published Admission Numbers 2023/2024

Birmingham City Council is consulting on our proposed admissions arrangements and proposed published admissions numbers for Community and Voluntary Controlled Schools for the 2023/2024 academic year.

The consultation starts on Monday 6 December 2021 and finishes on Monday 24 January 2022.

Our proposed admissions arrangements and published admissions numbers can be viewed here: Proposed Admissions Arrangements 2023-2024

Any comments on our proposed admission arrangements and published admissions numbers can be made here at the Birmingham City Council consultation website from Monday 6 December.

REMINDER Statutory Autumn 2021 Phonics Year 2 check

The web page https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/primarydata has now been updated with the necessary documentation regarding the statutory collection for Phonics Year 2.

Guidance on how to submit your return is available in the 'Recording and Submission guidance' and 'Anycomm+' section. 

Please submit your Phonics return strictly no later than Friday 17th December 2021. However, we encourage schools to submit their results as soon as possible after tests have been administered. 

Contact: educationdata@birmingham.gov.uk

Public Health Healthy Child surveys: Deadline 14 December

Public Health colleagues are keen to hear schools' views on our current Healthy Child Programme services in Birmingham.

The overall purpose of the Healthy Child Programme is to reduce health inequalities for children and young people aged 0-19 – and young people up to 25 who have SEND (special educational needs and disabilities); or have left care at 18.

The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete. The link to the survey is below:

• Healthy Child Programme survey for staff and stakeholders: children 5-19

Early Education Entitlement - 30 Hours Places for Spring Term 2022

For parents to access a 30 hour funded place in Spring 2022 parents must have an eligible code on or before 31st December 2021. Parents must have applied and received their code by 31st December or reconfirmed any codes that were due to expire by this date. The local authority cannot fund codes that have a validity start date of on or after the 1st January 2022.

It is the childcare providers responsibility to check the date on the code before offering a 30 hour place or part of a 30 hour place. You must do this by validating the code on ECS to make sure it is eligible for the current term. :

https://www.cloudforedu.org.uk/oefe/birmingham/la/schools

A child can not have 30 hours extended entitlement in Spring 2022 if the validity start date of the code is on or after 1st January 2022.

Further information about 30 hours and validating codes can be found on EYMIS: www.ted-birmingham.org.uk

Username: PVI2 (please note this is a capital i not the number one)

Password: PVI2year (please note this is a capital i not the number one)

If you have any queries regarding 30 hours extended entitlement please email NEF@birmingham.gov.uk

2 Year Funded Place - Early Education Entitlement

Before you offer a 2 year Early Education Entitlement (EEE) place you must ensure that the 2 year old child is eligible. A parent (or provider on the parents behalf with permission) must complete an eligibility application to confirm eligibility by using this link: https://www.cloudforedu.org.uk/oeye/birmingham

Every application generates a code or reference number - you must keep a note of this code for audit. If the code is eligible then you can offer a place, however the eligibility checker does not always confirm eligibility so if it doesn't you will need to view evidence of eligibility, then email NEF@birmingham.gov.uk with the child's name, DOB and the eligibility application code / reference and confirm specifically what evidence you have seen confirming the child's eligibility for example; you may have seen a confirmation letter that the child receives DLA. On receipt of this information the NEF team will override the application to eligible and email you back so that you can offer the place.

Do not offer a place unless you know it is eligible. 2 year olds can get a EEE funded place if they live in England and meet the 2 year eligibility criteria which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/free-childcare-2-year-olds

Early Years and Childcare Parent and Provider Surveys November 2021

The Early Years and Childcare Service is undertaking  parent and childcare provider surveys to support our statutory duty to assess childcare sufficiency in Birmingham.
Both surveys will be managed on behalf of Birmingham City Council by an external organisation called CORAM who are a children’s charity.
The surveys went live on BEHEARD Tuesday 23rd November 2021 and close on Sunday 12th December 2021.

Can you please complete the childcare provider survey and also encourage as many parents and carers as possible to engage in their survey as the results will be used to inform childcare strategies across all sectors moving forward.

Please see details and links to both surveys below. In addition please see attached a flyer promoting the parent survey you can display in your setting.

The Early Years and Childcare Service is undertaking a survey of parents and carers across Birmingham who currently use childcare, have recently used childcare or who will be looking to use childcare in the near future.

Please see the following link where you can view the BEHEARD Survey

Post 16 Sufficency Survey Reminder

The Post 16 Forum has commissioned this survey to help all partners in the sector to understand whether we have sufficient places across Birmingham to meet the needs of young people.

Why your views matter - The 16-18 population is growing and so we will need more places in Sixth Forms, Colleges and Training Providers. This survey aims to gather intelligence on current providers and the number of places they are planning to offer in order to meet growth. This will help the Post 16 Forum to identify any gaps in provision.

This is a reminder to any setting that haven't yet completed the form yet as the more settings that complete the form the greater our understanding of the post 16 landscape across the city and ability to make informed decisons on where and what type of provision is needed across the city.

The link for the survery is included - Deaddline for Submissions is 14th December 2021

Services for Education courses

Getting Behaviour Management Right in the Primary School:  Friday 14th January 2022 1pm - 4pm

This half-day course will build participating teachers’ confidence and competence in dealing with behaviour issues and provide a range of strategies to ensure behaviour does not impact negatively upon teaching and learning.

Places can be booked at this link.

Maths and Reading Interventions

The Education Endowment Fund recently published the Covid-19 Support Guide for Schools which details the various ways that ‘Catch Up’ Funding can be used to enhance and support a recovery curriculum for pupils when they return to school. One of their suggestions is interventions.

At Services For Education, we work with Edge Hill University and Oxford University Press to provide a range of successful Maths and English Reading interventions, including the 1stClass@Number Programmes; the positive impact of which has been evaluated and evidenced by EEF.

The nature of all these interventions and their accompanying professional development training over a series of days, provides for the impact of these interventions to go beyond those pupils, teachers and/or TAs that receive the training. Previous cohorts of schools have shown how the pedagogy and teaching and learning strategies utilised in the interventions, can impact on whole school approaches to support great teaching. Wider strategies such as engaging with parents and carers to support learners are also a key part of the interventions. Training is offered on-line or as a bespoke product that meets the specific needs of your school.

You can browse and book our Intervention Programmes at this link. https://www.servicesforeducation.co.uk/interventions/

Subsidised THRIVE training for Birmingham schools

Thrive is a therapeutic approach to help support children with their emotional and social development. It is a whole school approach based around, current studies of effective learning and current models of child development – in order to help the school to understand the needs being signalled by children’s behaviour. Key staff trained as Licensed THRIVE Practitioners within schools can carry out assessments of identified children’s social, emotional and behavioural needs which help us to build an Action Plan of targeted strategies and activities to help children re-engage with learning and life.

The Thrive Approach is ideal for professionals working in education - individual schools, multi-academy trusts (MATs) and local authorities - social care and the health care sectors, those supporting families in the community, and also for parents and carers. James Brindley Academy’s Licensed THRIVE Trainers will will be running 3 x Adolescent Practitioner Courses and 3 x Childhood Practitioner Courses next academic year. All course places are generously subsidised by Birmingham City Council but are limited in numbers, therefore we advise that you secure a place as soon as possible. For course costs, dates, delivery method, booking form and further information on the training being delivered by James Brindley Academy please visit our training page here: THRIVE Training at JBA

You can access more information regarding the content of THRIVE Licensed Practitioner Courses via the following links.

Childhood Licensed Practitioner Course  - https://www.thriveapproach.com/courses/practitioners/253/
Adolescent Licensed Practitioner course https://www.thriveapproach.com/courses/practitioners/237/