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Latest News
Summer 2016
North East Area Education Office
Introduction from the Area Education Officer
Kerry Randle, Area Education Officer (North East)
It’s difficult to know where to start in the Summer ‘16 edition of latest news, given the backdrop of
the EU referendum and uncertainty as the political parties (and remain/Brexit camps) fight out the
aftermath between them. So, parking that big issue...
Levels of Need
You should all have received the draft Levels of Need document which is now being ‘tested’ until
the end of September. I cannot stress how important this document will be in determining the
provision of support to our CYP and their families and so please forgive me if I continue to use
every opportunity to remind you to read this document, identify what works, what needs work and
use current examples of concern to test the levels out. I will be arranging education specific
workshops in the Autumn term where your feedback from this will be eagerly awaited.
Information sharing
It wouldn’t be an update without reference to 39/24s! I have been working closely with colleagues
from the Police and MASH and we are reaching a position of agreement regarding how
information will be shared in the future. The new MASH process will resolve much of the previous
frustration and concern regarding timely information sharing and we are also exploring additional
mechanisms to ensure schools receive vital safeguarding information as soon as possible. One of
which is whether Surrey adopts Operation Encompass, a national police led initiative to ensure
DA and missing children information coming to notice overnight is shared with schools by first
thing the following day. More on this issue to follow with an update in your inbox by the end of
term.
Education Landscape
Surrey is fortunate to have such a diverse range of partnerships and Trusts, whether Academies
or less formal in structure. Some of the frequently asked questions are around process, legality,
funding implications and choice. In order to respond to this, Primary Phase council have initiated
discussions in to facilitating a couple of independently facilitated workshop to be held in
September. These workshops are aimed at Heads, CoGs and SBMs and are currently being
planned, but already FASNA have been approached and secured to provide the main
independent input. Please do look out for dates which will be shared in the next few weeks.
Finally, following the White paper and changes to commissioning school improvement, we are
currently working with Head representatives in planning for the future transition of school
improvement from Babcock, on behalf of the LA, to a new partnership model of school
improvement oversight and support. This will be shared in due course.
Enjoy the last few weeks of term, holidays and summer sun isn’t far away!
Latest News
Contacting the Area Education Office:
If you would like to contact the Area Education Office, please call 01372 833412.
The Area Education Office aim to answer all of the calls received straight away. If however we
are engaged or away from our desks, your call will divert through to our voicemail. Please do
leave a message and a contact telephone number and we will respond to your message as soon
as possible.
Kerry Randle
Area Education Officer
Email: [email protected]
Caroline Marden
Area Schools Officer
Email: [email protected]
Mariette Masters
Area Schools Assistant
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 01372 833412
NE Education Teams:
Tel: 01372 833588
Out of hours:
Emergency Management Duty Officer mobile number: 07831 473039
North East Area Education Office
Elmbridge Civic Centre
High Street
Esher
Surrey
KT10 9SD
Tel: 01372 832501
Latest News
Goodbye & Thank you......
We say a fond farewell to a number of Headteachers this term who we will miss and have
gratefully appreciated as part of the NE family.
Linda Hutchings and Bob Twells retire from their respective Headteacher roles at St Martins CofE
Infants and St Martins CofE Juniors; Pat Beechey is retiring from Oatlands School; Rhian
Thornton is moving from St Matthew’s CofE Infants on to a new Headship, as is Tracey Fantham,
who leaves Blenheim High School.
Thank you so much to them all for their invaluable contribution and dedication to Surrey children
and families.
Your feedback......
Termly updates have been issued by the NE Education team for a number of years now and it
would be really interesting to hear from you as to whether you find them helpful, and if there is
anything you would like us to inform you about further. Please could you email any comments
you may have to Mariette Masters – [email protected] - Thank you!
Latest News
School Support Service
Caroline Marden, Area Schools Officer
It’s been lovely re-establishing relationships and contacts since I’ve been back in role as NE Area
Schools Officer. Many of you attended the Crisis Management and Parents Living Apart training
held in recent months and the feedback from those sessions has been really positive.
I have recently had a request from the police to remind you that should you wish to report an
incident, to please call 101 (999 in an emergency) rather than via your local police officer. This is
important so that the call handler will then be able to follow the correct procedure and the incident
will be logged and an icad number generated.
We are currently completely updating the complaints process (with fewer stages and a shorter
time in which parents can lodge complaints), which we hope to be able to send out at the
beginning of the autumn term. With this in mind, the next training session we have on offer is
specifically on this – Dealing with Complaints – which will be held on Thursday 29th September – I
would strongly urge you consider attending. Details and booking form are below:
Dealing with Complaints
Best practice advice on responding to and resolving concerns and complaints
Topics:
 The Updated SCC model complaints procedure
 DfE Guidance issued in January 2016
 Dealing with complaints expressed via social media
Delivered by:
Rachel Hickman, SCC Education Solicitor and Caroline Marden, Area Schools Officer
When:
Thursday 29th September 2016
Time:
Refreshments at 3.45pm
session from 4pm – 6pm
Where: The Vale Primary School, Beaconsfield Road, Langley Vale, Epsom, KT18 6HP
Should you wish to book a place, please complete the attached booking form to
[email protected]:
Booking Form ref CT
.docx
If you have any suggestions as to training you would find helpful and wish us to provide, do
please let me know.
Mariette will be shortly be sending an email to you and your office team requesting you complete
the emergency contact details covering the summer holiday period. In the meantime we hope
you have a successful and enjoyable final half term of the academic year – should you require
any help or wish to discuss a concern, please do give me a call on 01372 833412 / 07811
179395.
Latest News
Education Safeguarding
Ian McGraw, Education Safeguarding Advisor
The recent release of Keeping Children Safe in Education 2016 is a timely reminder to us all of
the importance of remaining on top of developments in safeguarding issues and practice. While
we may feel the weight of our action planning in response to the changing legislation, your
commitment to creating a safe place for children to learn and have their voices heard is
recognised and appreciated.
The Education Safeguarding Team have produced a briefing sheet and action points on the
changes to KCSiE to support your setting to fulfil their safeguarding role.
The education safeguarding team produce an online update via the Schools Bulletin. We are now
on issue three and the latest release can be read here. Please do get in contact if you would like
any guidance, advice or information for your setting.
Please contact us at [email protected] or on 020 8213 2669.
Area Lead for Pupil Support
Janice Anastasi
This academic year has been extremely busy for the pupil support teams. Education Welfare,
STIP team, A2E, Surrey on Line School and Family Workforce Training and Support have all
written about their latest news individually.
I am delighted to confirm that Rowena Slater has now been confirmed in post as Area Education
Welfare Manager and Rowena is now looking to permanently fill other interim posts on her team.
The EWO and STIP teams have managed a doubling of Permanent Exclusions in the NE this
year, as well as delivering advice and guidance to Sutton maintained schools. Rowena and I will
be working during the summer on forensic analysis of PEX data and reporting to Heads in the
Autumn.
STIP sees the return of Emily Gaunt to the team in July and colleagues may like to be aware that
Jo Kenyon is recovering from surgery but hopes to return before the end of term. In the
meantime Maureen Fernandes is leading the team.
At the start of next term I am taking special leave until 30 th September and in my absence
members of the pupil support team will be stepping up to cover aspects of the work I cover.
Information on this will be sent to you in September.
Should you have any CP meetings scheduled for the summer where your staff cannot attend,
please could you let Rowena Slater know.
Latest News
Education Welfare Officer (EWO) Team
Rowena Slater, Area Education Welfare Manager
Holidays in term time
We are now almost at the end of another academic year, with many of us looking forward to
summer holidays. Many schools will be receiving requests from parents to take holiday in term
time. There has been much in the press recently regarding the High Court’s decision to overturn
the Isle of Wight decision. This has led to a lot of speculation about how schools should be
managing these requests. The guidance given by the Surrey Court Presentation Officers is that
cases of unauthorised holiday will be considered if the child’s school attendance is below 90% for
the previous 6 months (190 sessions). This calculation should include the absence being
requested. If the request comes in during the early part of the academic year, then the latter part
of the previous academic year should be included in the calculation. If you require further
clarification, please speak to your Education Welfare Officer.
Year 6 with no secondary school place
If you are the Head Teacher of a Primary School or Junior School and you are aware of children
where parents have not applied for a secondary school place, please inform education welfare.
You can do this by speaking to your EWO or emailing me directly:
[email protected] so that I can request that an EWO follows up any enquiries. By
taking this proactive action we may be able to reduce the number of children in Surrey who are
Children Missing Education – that is children without a school place.
Permanent Exclusions – CPD opportunities
Over the past few months, I have come across instances where school governors and in a very
few cases Head Teachers have not received appropriate training/CPD on how to manage a
permanent exclusion. All maintained schools are entitled to support and guidance from the NE
Exclusions team when faced with the difficult decision about whether they may have to
permanently exclude. Babcock 4S can help with training school governors in this subject. If you
would like to discuss professional development in this subject, please speak to a member of the
Exclusions Team who can give you an idea of what support might be available.
Specialist Teaching Team for Inclusive Practice- STIP
Maureen Fernandes: Lead Specialist Teacher, Learning & Language Support NE
Yet again this term the Specialist Teaching team has been very much in demand for its work with
individual children and also for our training courses. We have run a number of centralised courses
this year that have been very popular with teachers and teaching assistants, with topics ranging
from ASD to literacy and ADHD to writing. We will have a list of courses planned for the coming
year for schools to look at in September school planning meetings. At those meetings it would
also be useful to find out from you what other training you might be interested in.
Changes to Speech & Language Therapy in Surrey
We are supporting the work of Surrey County Council in planning for the changes in Speech and
Language Therapy (SLT) Services to mainstream schools in Surrey. We intend to continue to
work closely with SLT in schools to support children with language difficulties.
Latest News
Person Centred Approaches
From September we aim to continue practicing and promoting our person centred approaches
within schools. Jo Kenyon will be resuming her involvement in training on Person Centred
Practices (accredited by Helen Sanderson Associates) with Julia Findlay from the North West
STIP team. Please contact Jo Kenyon or Business Support (01372 833588) if you are interested
in attending this training next term.
Staffing
We are sadly losing two valued Specialist Teachers at the end of this term but will be joined by a
new recruit who has extensive experience in this type of work, and also a returning, experienced,
Specialist Teacher, so we are confident that we will be able to provide our usual quality service to
schools. If your allocated teacher is changing you will be contacted by your new teacher later this
month or at the beginning of next term.
Exam Concessions: Assessment
Hopefully, we will be able to provide an exam concession assessment service next year; please
contact me or Business Support at Esher if you wish to discuss this.
Exclusions
We will continue to provide exclusion advice prior to the involvement of Education Welfare
colleagues who manage permanent exclusions. Please contact us at the Esher office if you need
advice.
On behalf of STIP I wish you all a good break during the summer and the team looks forward to
working with all our schools again in September.
Access to Education (A2E) (Non-Medical)
Liane Coakes, NE Area Lead
This academic year has seen a record number of referrals to the team, who have worked
tirelessly to support some very complex pupils. During our busiest period, we were working with
54 pupils, 62% of which were SEN. We have seen some very successful transitions to both
mainstream and specialist placements. Please remember that we will always support any
students that move from A2E back to school, and are happy to work with schools to facilitate a
positive outcome for our students.
A termly reminder - if a pupil is on the roll of a school it is the responsibility of the school to source
and fund any additional provision and support. If A2E have capacity we may be able to offer
support on a commissioned basis following a discussion with Liane Coakes. We will action any
such referrals in order of the date received by our office.
For any other referrals being sent to A2E, please ensure that you fully complete the referral form
before sending it to us, along with any supporting documents. If it is not completed, it may be
sent back to you, which will delay any support we may be able to offer.
If you wish to make any enquiries regarding A2E, please contact Liane Coakes on 01483 519112,
email [email protected]
Latest News
Family Workforce Training and Support - supporting Home School Link
Workers & Children Centre Outreach Workers
Andrea Page
Suzy Lamplugh Lone Worker (personal safety) training
Next available course is scheduled to take place on Tuesday 12th July at Park House
Leatherhead. If you would like to book a place for your HSLW or support staff who undertake
home visits, please contact [email protected]
Joint Early Help Network - Family Workforce Development Team & Early Help Partnership
Service
Every year within the month of July The Family Workforce Team and the Early Help Partnership
Service work together to jointly deliver the early help networks across the four quadrants.
The topic for this year’s joint network will be: The Right to Know and Coercive Control
The north east network is scheduled for Tuesday 12th July 9.30 to 11.30 at the Focus Youth
Centre, 9 Depot Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT17 4RJ.
HSLWs or support staff can book a place via the email address below
[email protected] stating the date and quadrant.
Record keeping - Understanding the Family Story (UFS) & Caseload management training
The Family Workforce Training and Support Team evaluation reports have identified that there is
a need for a consistent approach across Surrey which will avoid duplication of work and provide a
method that is beneficial for new and experienced members of the home school link workforce
alike. Home School Link workers are responsible for providing accurate evidence of contact to
assist with safeguarding issues.
This framework is designed as a thorough recording document which will support HSLW to
understand the families they are working with by supporting their analytical thinking, judgement
and decision making.
UFS documents can be used with both one off and complex cases. Through using our record
keeping documents, HSLWs can evidence the impact and outcomes of their work.
Please contact me should you wish to book a place on this course.
Supervision
The Family Workforce Training and Support Team co-ordinate professional supervision for all
HSLWs and ORWs across Surrey. Should you wish supervision, please contact me.
Contact: [email protected]
Latest News
Surrey online School
Chris Goodall
www.surreyonlineschool.co.uk
Surrey Online School is supporting schools find alternative provision for LAC, school refusers,
students with medical needs, students with SEN, and students where other alternative education
has broken down. To date approximately 35% of students are attending the Surrey Online School
to help prevent permanent exclusion.
Surrey Online School has replaced the previous Lift Off service and has significantly increased
the quality of the offer. It offers GCSE's to ALL students and gives schools increased levels of
communication about progress and attendance. To date we have provided online lessons for over
250 students across 40 different schools and services across Surrey.
This year we have some amazing case studies of students who have previously been school
refusers due to anxiety, or other reasons, and have not attended school (in one case since year
7) but these students are on course to achieve 3 good GCSE's. Although online learning is not
necessarily suitable for all students there is good evidence that for some, it may be one of the
only ways that they can engage and achieve in order to move onto the next stage of their
learning.
We are coming to the end of our first full year and we are constantly seeking feedback from
schools as to how we can improve the service. To give us feedback or find out more please email
surreyonlineschool.surreycc.gov.uk
Education Psychology and Assessment
Sally Grimstone, Area Lead for Psychology and Assessment
It is now almost two years since the SEND Code of Practice was first published and this has had
huge implications for SEN departments, schools and partners. The system has many advantages
in particular person centred approaches for families. However the pressure of managing
shortened timescales, new processes and meeting the statutory deadlines for transfers of a
statement to an EHCP has been a challenge for all.
The NE SEN Team had a successful recruitment campaign at the start if the academic year and
over time schools have noticed an improvement in responsiveness. The first EHCP monitoring
group was held in the Spring term with representatives from Headteachers and partners including
family groups and feedback was positive. The majority of the back log cases have now been
completed and in many cases provision was put in place prior to issuing a Plan so that children
are supported. Timeliness has improved but this has been a challenge for all especially the SEN
department and EP Service as they have struggled with capacity issues, this has not been helped
by a significant rise in requests for statutory assessment for children with SEN. The need for
consistency in processes across County including the threshold for initiating a statutory
assessment is currently a focus and this is being reinforced by the new management
arrangements for SEN and Psychology, currently under one manager for the County, Liz Mills,
SEND Strategy Lead.
Details about current work in the SEN department and Educational Psychology Service follow:
Latest News
SEN Team:
We have been comparing some of the statistics for the NE SEN team and you may be interested
to know that during the period January to April 2016, the NE SEN team received more requests
for statutory assessment than any of the other areas and overall 32% of the requests came to the
NE team.
In January, February and March we also had the highest numbers of requests turned down and
we are aware of the impact this can have for schools and families. Since the beginning of June a
trial county wide decision making system has been in place to ensure a consistency of approach
to new requests and a review of common themes will enable the SEN teams to better support
schools and families in SEND Support Review meetings where a statutory requests for
assessment is being considered. Please contact your caseworker or Educational Psychologist if
you need further information on requests for assessment.
The NE SEN team have had some recent staff changes, Daniel Pinto Almeida has been
appointed as an Assistant Team Manager in the SW team and has recently left us. Helen Green
has left the Transfer team to take up a role outside Surrey and many schools will also know
Catherine Green, Assistant Case Officer, who is leaving to go travelling. We wish them all good
luck. Our backlog of cases continues to reduce and as a result Marion Rodgers has now returned
to the main SEN team.
We have also made recent appointments and anticipate that new staff will be joining the team
during the summer.
Taking into account staff changes and our close monitoring of caseloads, we will be making some
changes to caseworker allocations during the summer break. We are aware from feedback that
schools value having an allocated caseworker who has knowledge of the school and families so
we will aim to keep any disruption to schools to a minimum and we will let you know if you have a
change of worker.
Should you wish to speak to the team, you can do so via the following phone numbers:
Mainline SEN: 01737 737940
Duty line for Schools: 01737 733880
Transfer line: 01737 737298
Anne Williams
NE Area Special Needs Manager
Educational Psychologist team:
We are now on the last leg of what has been a very busy academic year for us here in the North
East EP team. We have this term completed the second of our Cygnets training, which is a
programme specifically designed for parents and educational support staff of children and young
people on the Autistic Spectrum. Our EPs, Pippa Rees and Ciara Close worked alongside our
colleague Linda Caldwell from the Learning and Language Support Service to deliver this and it
once again received very positive feedback from parents and school staff.
We will be repeating the course twice next year, once in the Autumn term and once in the
Summer term so do please encourage parents that you know might be interested to contact Vicky
Jones at the Linden Bridge Teaching School to register.
Latest News
We are also delighted to be offering another 5 day Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA)
training in the Autumn term. This is in response to popular demand from schools who find the
resource of a Teaching Assistant specifically trained in the area of Emotional Literacy invaluable.
Once trained, ELSAs receive half termly group supervision sessions run by an Educational
Psychologist so that any issues can be shared and resolved and so that they can continue to
receive professional development training in this area. It is also a great opportunity for them to
make links with the ELSAs in other schools in order to share ideas and resources.
Our team continues to work in other exciting areas alongside our school work such as The
Attachment Project that sees Bryony Wilford linking closely with the Post Adoption Social Care
Team to offer support and advice to these vulnerable children and their families.
We also link closely with and work alongside the Portage home teaching team and the Early
Years Improvement Advisors to ensure that the needs of pre-school children are identified and
appropriately met at an early stage. Jackie Burford who co-ordinates Portage in our area, has
also delivered training to Early Years SENCOs this year on the new processes around SEND and
the role of the EP. Sue Kite continues in her role as supervisor to our trainee EP, Larissa
Peterson, and Fiona Dawson has played a key role in undertaking a number of Post 16
assessments this year as our EP duties have extended following the SEND 14 Code of Practice
since we now work with children and young people aged from 0-25 where as it was previously 019. In terms of our staffing, we have been rather challenged this term by the departure of Orla
Hayes who was a full time EP in the Spelthorne area. She is greatly missed and we have had to
put some emergency cover arrangements in place however the situation will be improving from
September.
Whilst we will still not be fully staffed, we will have Rosie Lee returning to the Elmbridge area from
maternity leave and Ann Cottis, our Locum EP will be continuing with us and will offer support to
some of our Spelthorne schools. Kirsty Quinn will be returning as Senior EP following her
adoption leave and Alix Diemont will also continue in a Senior role focussing on supporting the
SEND agenda as well as supporting some schools in Epsom and Ewell. It is with great sadness
that we say a fond farewell to Tony Donovan, Senior EP who will be retiring this term. Tony
managed the NE EP team for a number of years and for the last 2 years has continued to work
alongside us with a particular specialist interest in the area of SEND processes, helping us to
shape and develop these in partnership with our colleagues in SEND Management. His
knowledge, experience and sense of humour will be greatly missed by our team.
We would like to thank all of our schools for their patience and understanding of our challenging
staff situation and heavy EHCP workload this year and we will look forward to working with you
again from September onwards. We wish everyone a relaxing and well earned summer break.
Nadia Wilkinson and Alix Diemont
Area Senior EPs
Latest News
PortageTeam
Jackie Burford, Education Psychologist and NE Portage Coordinator
The NE Portage team have had a busy year and our waiting list has continued to
grow. We are lucky to have a stable staff this year and the team are working well
together.
This year one of our Portage Support Workers has been working with the Down
Syndrome Development Group and has found this to be a useful experience. It has
been decided that the support worker role in this group will be rotated around the
four areas and so our support worker will not be continuing with this next year.
Our two Portage teachers have been trained and then delivered one Earlybird
course already this year and are currently delivering their second course over the
summer term. The evaluations of the course from the parents involved have been
very positive and it has been a satisfying course for the teachers themselves to
deliver. The teachers have also delivered training to Early Years practitioners on
ASD (Autism in the Early Years) which was again very well received. A further
course has been booked for the autumn term.
Our senior Portage teacher has delivered sessions giving an introduction to
Portage as part of the Code of Practice training delivered by the Early Years and
Childcare service this year. She has also completed the Portage training for
trainers this year and we hope to be able to use this to offer more in depth training
on Portage next year.
Due to these commitments, despite being fully staffed this year we have not as yet
managed to reduce our waiting list and for many parents this has meant up to a six
month wait before they have been offered Portage.
The team have continued to deliver the 12 week Positive Play intervention to
support parents who need help to develop strategies to manage the behaviour of
their children. We have also been further developing a similar 12 week programme
to support parents with children whose behaviour needs are linked to their
difficulties with social communication (Communication and Play programme or
CAPP).