Noticeboard

Noticeboard: 21 January 2021

This week's Noticeboard includes comprehensive information about the Spring Census, Schools' 2020-21 Financial End Year Timescale, training courses and more.

Included in this update:

Proposed In-Year variation to determined admission arrangements: Plantsbrook School

Plantsbrook School has sought an In-Year variation to their determined admissions arrangements for 2021/2022. The current version of the Academy’s admissions arrangements can be viewed at this link.

The below is an extract from their determined admissions arrangements for 2021/2022 and is the only part of their admissions arrangements that they have sought the variation for, the rest of their arrangements will remain unchanged.

Determined admissions arrangements 2021:
 
Distances are calculated on the basis of a straight line measurement between the applicant’s home address and the centre point of the school building. The Local Authority uses a computerised system, which measures all distances in metres.  Ordnance Survey supply the co-ordinates that are used to plot an applicant’s home address and the address of the academy.

Plantsbrook School’s proposal is not to change where they measure applicants from, that will remain unchanged from previous Years. Plantsbrook School’s proposal is a change to amend the wording in their determined admissions arrangements for 2021/2022 as highlighted below in green below to clarify exactly where they measure applicants too.

Proposed variation to determined admissions arrangements 2021:

Distances are calculated on the basis of a straight line measurement between the applicant’s home address and the centre point of the old school building. The Local Authority uses a computerised system, which measures all distances in metres.  Ordnance Survey supply the co-ordinates that are used to plot an applicant’s home address and the address of the academy.

Schools' 2020-21 Financial Year End Timescale

Given complexities associated with Covid and the timing of Easter this year, we propose a different approach towards final account for schools for 2020/21:

  1. Schools should pay all their invoices for services / goods received in the financial year by 28th February 2021
  2. This means, as far as possible, stopping ordering after 31st January 2021 (so that goods and services are received and invoices paid by 28th February, as above)
  3. Schools do not make payment to suppliers in March 2021, but accrue for any goods or services received (or anticipated to be received)
  4. Cheque book schools to submit year end workbook by Monday 15th March 2021

This will allow for accounts to be closed in March, based on estimates of March spend (and any estimated income receivable).  This should ensure all year end financial documents are completed and submitted on time and minimise the need for additional work or queries raised over the Easter period. It also helps with the statutory requirement to produce the consolidated accounts (of schools and the Local Authority) earlier. Detailed guidance will follow.

DfE Statutory School Census – Spring 2021

Key dates: Census date: Thursday 21 January  | Return date: Monday 25 January  

Every school in England has a statutory duty to submit School Census, each term, under Section 537A of the Education Act 1996

OVERVIEW

The Spring School Census will be used to fund the early year’s block of the dedicated schools grant, early years pupil premium as well as pupil premium for local authority maintained PRU’s, alternative provision academies and free schools, for all other schools their pupil premium will based on the data collected for Autumn Census 2020.

DfE changes

Impact of the covid19 pandemic and the absence of a Summer Census collection has led to changes to existing items for spring census
Attendance details see sections 1.1.1-1.1.3
Exclusions see sections 1.2.2, 1.2.3, 1.2.4
Free school meals see section 1.4.1
Unusual circumstances – COVID-19 see section 1.4

School census team are still working from home but are now able to receive phone calls on their normal work numbers via Cisco communicator

SECTION 1.1: New data items for Spring 2021

1.1.1 Total number of sessions attending approved educational activity

  • The total number of sessions a pupil has spent in attendance at an approved educational activity within the collection period.
  • For all schools except nursery.
  • The first collection of this data will occur in the spring 2021 census.

See the sessions possible data item for full details.

1.1.2 Total number of sessions unable to attend due to exceptional circumstances

  • The total number of sessions a pupil was unable to attend due to an exceptional circumstance within the collection period
  • For all schools except nursery.
  • The first collection of this data will occur in the spring 2021 census.

See the sessions possible data item for full details.

1.1.3 Total number of sessions not attending in circumstances relating to coronavirus (COVID-19)

  • The total number of sessions a pupil was not attending in circumstances relating to coronavirus (COVID-19) within the collection period.
  • For all schools except nursery.
  • The first collection of this data will occur in the spring 2021 census.

See the sessions possible data item for full details.

For further information, please refer to the school attendance guidance for schools and addendum: recording attendance in relation to coronavirus (COVID-19) during the 2020 to 2021 academic year.

SECTION 1.2 Changes to existing data items for 2020-21

1.2.1 Termly attendance module

  • From autumn 2020, data will be recorded and returned on all categories of school attendance, rather than just absence.
  • The first collection of this data will occur in the spring 2021 census.

See the termly attendance data item for full details.

1.2.2 Exclusion reasons

  • From autumn 2020, changes include:
    • extending the exclusion reason codes
    • allowing up to 3 reasons to be submitted per exclusion
  • The first collection of up to 3 reasons and new codes will occur in the spring 2021 census

See the exclusions data item for full details.

1.2.3 Exclusion collection period

  • Amended in line with attendance, with the start of autumn 2020 term set as 01 August and the end of summer term 31 July.

See the exclusions data item for full details.

1.2.4 Additional exclusion reason added

  • To support the government’s response to coronavirus (COVID-19), an additional reason of ‘Wilful and repeated transgression of protective measures in place to protect public health’ has been added.
  • For use from autumn 2020.

See the exclusions data item for full details.

SECTION 1.3 Deleted data items for 2020-21

There are no deleted data items for the 2020 to 2021 school census.

SECTION 1.4 Unusual circumstances – COVID-19

Schools must provide pupil level data for pupils who are recorded on the school admission register as at census day, irrespective of whether they attend school on that day. Therefore, pupils who are absent from school on census day, whether the absence is COVID-19 related or for other reasons, should be counted in schools’ census returns in the usual way.

Current funding allocation through the national funding formula (NFF) and the pupil premium is calculated based on the number of pupils on roll and is not affected by pupil non-attendance on census day.

However, the universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) funding stream and other data items are dependent on whether a pupil attends school on census day see below:

1.4.1 Free school meals taken and school lunches taken

As schools are only open for vulnerable children and the children of critical workers, the majority of pupils will not be in attendance in schools on census day. Therefore, schools should record free school meals taken and school lunch taken as the normal situation, for example if a pupil would normally have a school meal on a Thursday they should be recorded as such on the census.

Please note however, any vulnerable pupils or children of critical workers who are absent for reasons other than COVID related or who have chosen to have a packed lunch on census day should not be recorded as having taken a school lunch and any of this cohort of pupils who are FSM eligible should not be counted in the free school meals taken figure.

The Department realises that school opening restrictions could affect census returns for UIFSM. We will confirm future funding arrangements for UIFSM separately.

1.4.2 Early years – funded hours, extended hours and hours at setting

Early years provision should remain open and continue to allow all children to attend full time or their usual timetable hours. This includes early years registered nurseries and childminders, maintained nursery schools, as well as nursery classes in schools and other pre-reception provision on school sites. This is the default position for all areas irrespective of national lockdown restrictions. It is the government’s intention for there to be parity of approach between the school census and the early years’ census.

Funded hours, extended hours and hours at setting for pupils who are in attendance during census week should be recorded as normal.

Funded hours, extended hours and hours at setting should be recorded as the number of hours the pupil would normally be expected to attend during census week in the following circumstances:

  • Pupils are absent because they are self-isolating
  • Parents have chosen not to send their child to nursery

Where the parent has requested a change to the funded hours entitlement taken at the establishment, schools must record the revised funded hours.

Funded hours, extended hours and hours and setting should be recorded as zero in the following circumstances:

  • The nursery provision has chosen to close
  • Where the child is not attending because the school has chosen to restrict nursery provision to certain groups of children (e.g. vulnerable children and children of key workers)

1.4.3 Class module

Schools should record classes as they would normally have been timetabled at the selected time on census day.

1.4.4 Unit contact time

The unit contact time should be recorded as the number of hours the pupil would normally have spent at the unit in the census week.

1.4.5 School childcare

Schools who provide childcare facilities and due to COVID related reasons have had to temporarily close either some or all of these facilities should record what the school would normally offer.

SECTION 2: DfE Guides for School Census and COLLECT

The DfE website which breaks down the school census guidance by school type and only includes information relevant for that age band of children can be accessed at this link.

2.1 COLLECT check your data

The DfE website has a section called ‘check your data’ and contains the following topics to help you correct your data

Viewing your errors and queries
Correcting errors
Adding explanation notes for queries - ie notepad entries at this link

COLLECT reports
Available COLLECT reports
Duplicate report: same UPN
Duplicate report: same person different UPN
Term-on-term checks

This part of the website can be accessed at this link.

2.2 DfE Secure Access Site

This link will direct you to the new DfE secure portal DfE Sign-in help screen

If you are experiencing any other issues with the Secure Access Site, please don’t contact the LA as this is a DfE system and we do not provide support. If you are experiencing issues with the site, then you can submit a DfE Service Request form using this link.

2.3 COLLECT User Guides

To assist schools with using the COLLECT system to make a successful School Census return, the DfE have published COLLECT user guides on the School Census website.

2.4 DfE video Guides

DfE video Guides (Census preparation and funding) are available at this link.

2.5 Spring Census COLLECT Familiarisation

The ‘beta’ release of the 2020 Spring School Census ‘live’ COLLECT blade will remain available until 3 pm on Friday 15 January 2021.  Please log onto the site in advance of producing Spring census to ensure you can upload a test file and check errors/queries in your current data. Completion of this process will make loading and correction easier and to ensure you are able to submit a final return in the live collection. This is particularly important for staff, new to School Census. The blade will then be removed and cleared out in advance of the start of the live collection on Thursday 21 January 2021.

SECTION 3: Maximise Your Funding

3.1Pupil premium funding

It was announced in December 2020 that pupil premium allocations for most schools will now be based on data collected as part of the autumn school census. This applies to all schools except for local authority maintained PRUs and alternative provision academies and free schools who will continue to be allocated funds based on information collected in the spring school census. Details can be found here

3.2 COLLECT funding reports

Funding reports showing pupil numbers for both the dedicated schools grant and pupil premium allocations (including the early years pupil premium) are available via the reports section in COLLECT. It is essential that these funding reports are checked and verified in conjunction with LA Finance Officers in advance of the spring school census database closing to amendments from schools and local authorities on 17 March. Amendments to the database will not be possible after this date and, consequently, this will be your only opportunity to contest your funding pupil numbers.

To assist with using and interpreting these funding reports, funding report user guides have been published on the school census website

3.3 Used for funding marker

Where a data item contributes to the school’s funding calculation, such items are marked [used for funding] with this appearing alongside the collection (school phase). The [used for funding] marker prompts schools that the marked data items need to be especially accurate, given that errors with these items may affect the school’s funding.

3.4 How schools have lost funding

I would like to stress the importance of completing an optical check on the data in your return and not rely entirely on DfE validation checks within COLLECT to identify errors, as there are certain errors that validation checks will never be able to identify, see example 1 and 2 below such as

Example 1 Errors of omission i.e. if you exclude a child eligible for pupil premium

Example 2 Data supplied is within a valid parameter range ie nursery pupils with funded/extended hours anything in the range 1 – 15 would be valid, if you record 5 hours instead of 15 COLLECT would accept this as valid.

Impact on funding

The two examples above have occurred on school census and as a result the schools concerned have lost thousands of pounds of funding.  In example 2 above the school concerned only found out when they received their budget notification, but by that time the COLLECT blade had closed and the DfE will accept no alterations.

SECTION 4: Early Years Provision

Given the challenges the pandemic has provided for Early Year providers an extended guidance document has been developed and is at this link.

SECTION 5: Software and IT Support for Census

5.1 SIMS Users

Software support is available from Entrust Education Technologies formerly Link2ICT Tel: 303 5100

For any updates on known software issues, software guides and upgrade information please check: https://link2ict.service-now.com

5.2 Facility CMIS / Could School (Progresso) Users

Software support is available from Advance Learning helpdesk: 0330 060 2199

For any updates on known software issues, software guides and upgrade information please check https://customers.advancedcomputersoftware.com/login

5.3 Scholar pack users

Software support is available on Tel: 01522 716049

5.4 Other MIS users

If you do not use any of these MIS systems, please contact your software supplier or IT support for updates on software issues and upgrades.

5.5 Perspective has replaced Egress

From 1 September 2020 Egress was decommissioned by Birmingham City Council.

As a result of this change the school census team will now upload census reports to Perspective.

When we upload new data to Perspective the team will send an email to our census contact to let them know they have new data enquiries to investigate.

The chart below shows the folder structure where the school census team will upload your data.

NB If you don’t have any enquiries to resolve for a certain data item such as Duplicate Pupil Detected a folder won’t appear for you to access.

To log in to your Perspective ‘Lite’ account visit: https://perspective.angelsolutions.co.uk/Perspective/Login.aspx
Perspective has a built-in forgotten password feature; the user name may be your school’s URN number (Ofsted reference).

For access related enquiries for Perspective please contact: schoolcensus@birmingham.gov.uk.

5.5.1 Setting up additional users

Perspective Lite allows Head and Senior Leadership Team account users. You can set up users for sharing of data, or teachers who would like access additional tools.

A detailed guide on how to do this is within the knowledge base of Perspective itself.  To access, click on the question mark in the top right-hand corner, select ‘Perspective Lite Help Centre’ and then ‘User Management’

To create a user, click on Settings and then select Manage Users.  Then select Create New User.

5.5.2 Support

The icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen provides you with the contact details of Angel Solutions.

  • (? Symbol); they should be contacted if you have any technical issues with Perspective Lite.
  • The cog symbol allows you to manage your account and change your password.

Email:   perspectivesupport@angelsolutions.co.uk

Call:      0845 129 7196

NB Entrust Education Technologies formerly Link2ICT does not support Perspective Lite

Please can I take this opportunity to thank you all in advance for your efforts in completing the upcoming Spring census.

Sandra Dawkes
Education Data and Intelligence
Tel: 0121 303 8842
Email: SchoolCensus@birmingham.gov.uk

Get outside, enjoy your local green space and become a Park Star - we need you!

As you know we are now back in lockdown but our parks and green spaces remain open. To keep children excited and engaging with nature we have developed a green passport. The green passport includes an interactive set of green inspired activities for children to complete and once they have completed all 6 activities, they will become a Birmingham Park Star – we hope you can share this with your students.

We’ve launched our Park Star programme!

To be one of our 2021 Park Stars all you need to do is download and print (if you can) or just download to your digital device the Park Stars Passport which is available at the bottom of the webpage – once the 6 activities have been completed your students will receive a Park Stars Certificate. Our green passport provides the perfect opportunity to get outside and enjoy local green spaces. 

Services for Education: New Safeguarding Subscription

From January 2021 Services For Education is providing a new way to access your school’s safeguarding training through a digital subscription service. All schools and settings can use this to develop, support and enhance your own safeguarding expertise and practice, in a flexible and accessible way.  We have worked with colleagues in BCC and within schools to tailor the support so that you can have access to:

  • recorded webinars on the key topics in KCSIE, and wider safeguarding issues and areas of concern e.g. Domestic Abuse; FGM including webinars on how to include these within the curriculum.
  • recorded webinars to cover safeguarding training requirements and responsibilities of all staff, governors and a new one specifically for school office staff.
  • A series of short, practical ‘how to’ video guides aimed at new DSLs that will address a range of practice-based issues, for example, aspects of safer working practice, inform action sharing and safeguarding, working with your SG Governor.

Schools will be able to buy a 12-month subscription which will provide licence holders with unlimited access to the training and resources for the year.

For further information and to purchase please visit  https://bit.ly/3ilZgTA - Sandra.passmore@servicesforeducation.co.uk

Year 2 Teachers – Reading: Making Greater Depth Judgements

A half-day course for teachers in Year 2 which explores the characteristics and needs of the able reader in KS1, looking specifically at working at greater depth within the age-related standard.
During the course, participants will gain:

  • A clear understanding of the modified 2018/19 teacher assessment framework standards
  • A chance to explore the day-to-day teaching and learning opportunities
  • The ability to evidence the refined ‘pupil can’ statements

https://www.servicesforeducation.co.uk/our-offer/reading-gd-year-2/ - Tricia.bunn@servicesforeducation.co.uk

Domestic Abuse, Schools and MARACs

This free webinar will look at the links between domestic abuse, child protection and the support for the adult victim through the MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conferences). We will look at how MARACs work, and how schools and education settings can be included in the process, how to make referrals and attending the meetings and the importance of risk assessments and safety planning with the families we work with.

We will also discuss the links between police and education and the implementation of Operation Encompass.

https://www.servicesforeducation.co.uk/our-offer/domestic-abuse-schools-maracs/ - Sandra.passmore@servicesforeducation.co.uk

Link2ICT & BCC Transition- AVCO AnyCommsPlus Server Migration

As you are aware from the last communications sent on 17th December 2020 via Link2ICT and 4th January 2021 via Noticeboard , Birmingham City Council is in the middle of planning and implementing the transition for the BCC applications used by Schools away from Link2ICT (Entrust) to Birmingham City Council. This change will take place from 1st April 2021.

AVCO AnyCommsPlus Server Migration: As part of the Link2ICT Separation Project, transferring Birmingham City Council supported School Services back in-house to BCC Information, Technology & Digital Services (IT&D), we are migrating the AVCO AnyCommsPlus Server. There will be a downtime of two days on Tuesday 26th and Wednesday 27th January 2021 where you won’t be able to login into AnyCommsPlus to download and upload files. The site is scheduled to be back online on Thursday 28th January 2021 at 14:00. Your user credentials will be ported over therefore you can log in as normal. Link2ICT will continue to support this application until 31st March 2021, then from 1st April 2021 support will be transitioned over to BCC IT&D.

Please use the new Birmingham AnyComms URL https://anycomms.birmingham.gov.uk from Thursday 28th January 2021

However, if you do have any questions, please feel free to direct any current support queries to -

Link2ICT Service Desk
T: 0121 303 5100
E: servicedesk@link2ict.org W: www.link2ict.org/portal

BCC Project Transition queries to
Matthew Ngai
Project Manager BCC Information, Technology and Digital Services
E: Matthew.Ngai@birmingham.gov.uk

Jane James
Portfolio Manager - BCC Information, Technology and Digital Services
E: Jane.James@birmingham.gov.uk

 

This entry was posted by Laura Hendry on 21/01/2021.

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