Updated risk assessment and Public Health FAQs

The council’s risk assessment template has been updated to take account of the current national guidance and the announcement earlier this week that Birmingham is an area of enhanced support.

In conjunction with Public Health, an FAQ document has also been produced which answers some of the key issues schools have raised with us in recent weeks (school trips, transition events, end of term proms etc).

Both documents are available at this link.

Schools with queries about their risk assessments can contact edsi.enquiries@birmingham.gov.uk

Webinar with Birmingham Public Health: Wednesday 23rd June 2021 3pm – 4pm

Senior Public Health officers are holding a webinar for schools next week to discuss the current situation with COVID in Birmingham, the city being an area of enhanced support and the implications of the national extension of some restrictions past 21st June.

To book a place at this webinar, please use this Eventbrite link and a Teams link will be sent before the session.

The slides presented and a recording of the session will be shared with all schools later on Wednesday.

Recording and slides from part-time timetables webinar

The presentation and recording from the part-time timetables webinar earlier this week are available at this link.

At that link you can access recordings and presentations from previous webinars and the documents from future webinars will be posted there for reference.

SEND Home to School transport arrangements for the autumn term

As we approach the end of term and put our SEND Home to School Transport arrangement in place for next term, we want to make sure that parents and carers are aware of how we will be communicating with them in regard to their child’s transport for September.  Please pass on the below text to parents to help to keep them informed.  We plan to send out another newsletter before the end of term to share any more details that we can at that stage.

Dear Parent or Carer

We write to update you on the ‘Home to School’ transport news in readiness for the new term in September.

In addition to existing routes due to continue for a further two years, from September 2021, Birmingham City Council has awarded ‘Home to School’ transport contracts previously held exclusively by National Express Accessible Transport (NEAT) to be delivered going forward by both AFJ Travel Ltd and to National Express Accessible Transport.

These operators have great experience of delivering accessible transport and were assessed as the successful suppliers in a rigorous bidding system (assessing quality and price) which guides how Birmingham City Council awards its contracts.

We recognise that both the council and its chosen travel operators are on an improvement journey and we want to reassure families that we are working with all our suppliers to provide a much better service going forward. The council has made huge investments in a new and very experienced transport team led by experts in their field.
We are pleased to say that currently our transport is running 99.4% of all its routes on time, and we are determined to build on this improvement.

We (either the council or the operator) will be in regular touch over the coming months to let you know:

• Your operator details
• Your guide details
• Your route details
• Your drop off and pick up times
• Details of your meet and greet session

If you have any questions for the team, please contact the Parentlink service (parentlinkservice@birmingham.gov.uk or 0121 303 8461) who will be pleased to help you.  Alternatively, you can leave feedback on the Local Offer website (www.localofferbirmingham.co.uk) which is a rich source of information for parents, carers and children & young people with SEND.  Please also see the website for transport updates.