Children who abuse others including peer on peer abuse / harmful sexual behaviour

Schools may be aware that Ofsted has called for a review of school safeguarding policies to ensure that victims of sexual abuse are supported effectively. This review, due to be completed in May 2021, follows concerns raised online in recent months, including on the Everyone’s Invited website. Ofsted may contact your school as part of this review. Informed by the outcome of the national review, Birmingham Children’s Trust and Birmingham City Council and Birmingham Safeguarding Children Partnership will work together to develop nationally aligned policies and practice.

Schools should remain alert to child on child abuse and bullying as they would any other type of abuse. Birmingham Safeguarding Children Partnership has an established evidence based child protection procedure in place to address this issue (Procedure (2.25) Children who abuse others including peer on peer abuse / harmful sexual behaviour). This was last reviewed and updated in December 2020 and is available at this link. Detailed guidance is also available in Keeping Children Safe in Education and the DfE advice for schools and colleges on how to prevent and respond to reports of sexual violence and harassment between children is available at this link.

The Education Safeguarding team remains the council’s single point of contact for all schools and education services regarding safeguarding issues. 

If your DSLs have received a disclosure and are not sure how to proceed, please contact the Education Safeguarding Team (EducationSafeguarding@birmingham.gov.uk).

If an historic concern is raised with you or the school is featured on the Everyone’s Invited website, please contact School and Governor Support (school.support@birmingham.gov.uk).

Early Years and Childcare Weekly Survey

Thank you to all who complete the survey each week.  The information you provide is crucial for our report to the DfE each week and in supporting our sufficiency assessments and support for settings.

A reminder that we have split the survey so that schools and PVIs have separate online forms to complete.  Both surveys now include a section on Out of School provision, as it is vital for us to understand the situation across the city in relation to wraparound care for school children and this was not captured in the previous survey. 

All providers and schools with a nursery class are asked to complete the form every week by Wednesday evening at 7pm. Once a school/setting reports that they are closed, they are not required to submit another return until they reopen. It only takes a few minutes to complete so we would encourage you to do so ASAP.  

Where we do not receive a return we will follow-up with providers.

The survey can be accessed using this link for schools Early Years Survey for Schools 

The survey can be accessed using this link for PVI providers Early Years Survey for PVIs

If you have any queries please contact EYDuty@birmingham.gov.uk

Birmingham Healthy City Planning Toolkit consultation

The Birmingham Healthy City Planning Toolkit is now out for consultation until 30th June 2021. The toolkit has been designed to help Birmingham become a health-giving city, where environment and surroundings offer opportunities to improve the health and well-being of the population. It contains a range of questions that help developers to consider the health impacts of new developments.

Birmingham Public Health want the people of Birmingham, strategic partners, and key agencies to let them know if they support the toolkit approach, and to help us to understand whether it presents barriers or opportunities for creating a city that improves health and well-being.

Please complete the consultation using the link below and share it widely with your school communities.

https://www.birminghambeheard.org.uk/place/healthy-city-planning-toolkit/