Educate Norfolk eNewsletter

After being signed of due to very nasty accident, it is wonderful to be able to welcome back Kirsty, our Educate Norfolk Co-ordinator. From this point forward, she will be resuming our weekly communications and surveys and coordinating the feedback from all of the meetings we have been attending.

Can I take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to Becky, Kirsty’s assistant, who really was thrown in at the deep end. She has done a magnificent job of holding things together, juggling Educate Norfolk business and channelling all of your queries and communications through to Sarah, Jim and I.

Thank you all as well for all of your feedback and support throughout. It’s good to have our full team in place again and we will continue to do our best to support you as effectively as we can in your roles as school leaders in Norfolk.

Best wishes to you all

Jess

Welcome from Kirsty

As I write this I am conscious that the world is a very different place to the one I was working in 12 weeks ago when I went off. What I will aim to do is to keep you informed about the wider picture and of what is relevant to us in Norfolk.

Due to the ever changing DfE guidance and constant updates, our aim is to help assimilate information and ensure a consistent message and approach for Norfolk schools.

To help facilitate this, our three chairs continue to meet with the LA daily, raising and addressing your concerns. So please do continue to share your thoughts, opinions and issues with us so that we can do our best for the young people in Norfolk.

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A number of members have highlighted the rising number of key worker children seeking a place in school. The LA has confirmed that provision must be prioritised in the following way: key workers, Nursery, Reception, Year 1, Year 6. If you need to reduce provision to allow more key worker children to attend, you must begin by reducing numbers in Year 6, followed by Year 1 and so forth.

If, even after removing pupils from the allocated year groups, you still find yourself unable to offer the places required for key worker children, please contact your LA Adviser to notify them and ask for advice.

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Staffing is presenting a huge challenge across the county at the moment.

Official advice from the LA, came in the alerts sent out on 5^th and 27^th May. I have included the relevant sections of the alerts in Appendix 1 at the end of the newsletter.

Below are examples of what some of our schools have done to try to address issues relating to staff who are reluctant to return to work:

Those with a concern should email the Headteacher with their reasons for not wanting to return.
Identifying tasks which the school needs completing by teaching or support staff, that can be done from home.
Allocating the above tasks to staff that need to work from home first (shielding) and then to those that would prefer not to return yet.
If there are no tasks that can be completed from home, staff should work in school. If necessary additional social distancing measures are put in place, such as working with an older year group.
Where a staff member is still not happy, HR advice is to take unpaid leave.

Some have used Occupational Health referrals to support this process.

Contact your HR advisor if you are at all unsure and communicate with staff via email where possible so these can be shared with HR if specific case by case advice is needed.

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Another issue raised with us frequently in the past two weeks is the increase in parental complaints and the increase in their expectations. As schools have begun to open more widely, some parents with children still at home have begun to question whether their children are missing out or will be left behind.

Some members have approached this by:

- Ensuring the work delivered in school, matches what is set for their peers at home.

- Where technology allows and staff are happy to do so, recorded segments of lessons have been shared. This has been made further interactive/engaging by polling students the day before on content choices/questions on work and recording a Q&A or the content selected.

- Regularly contacting home and RAG rating pupils based engagement to ensure students feel motivated and connected to their learning.

Some parents and students are understandably concerned that their children cannot attend the sites of the schools they will be attending in September.

We have scoured the internet and Norfolk schools for examples of what others are doing and we have collated this below. These have been gathered from EYFS to FE.

VIDEOS – Tours of the site, tours of classroom, meet and great with new class teacher/form tutor and any support staff linked to the class; welcome from the Headteacher to parents and seperately to students, from subject teachers (A Level) to students.

DEDICATED WEBPAGE – Including uniform suppliers, timings for the school day, drop off information, (most schools have put up their ‘normal’ ones and have said they will update at the end of August if needed). Q&A page of frequently asked questions by parents that is updated weekly, as a place to upload all the videos.

SENDING HOME – Getting to know you packs, home school agreements, letters to new students from new class teacher. For A Level pupils – summer work packs.

IF GUIDANCE CHANGES – Half a day to a full day each for all pupils in their new classroom/form room, with their new class teacher/form tutor.

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Especially in the light of the most recent announcements from the government, discussions regarding summer provision have been taking place during the daily meetings with the LA. Our consistent message is that it cannot be reliant on schools remaining open; staff need and deserve a break. The Local Authority has been fully supportive of this.

Some of the ideas currently being explored are:

By the summer, will schools be able to open their sites to external providers to run summer clubs as they would have done in the past?
Are schools that want to, able to run charged for childcare themselves over the summer?
Whether other (non-school based) staff can be utilised to provide an interactive learning package, potentially alongside school staff (interested in being commissioned to do this). This would not be an expectation.

Should you have any thoughts please feed these back to me (Kirsty) to collate and prepare for our next meeting. We will keep you up to date as plans develop.

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Boris Johnson announced on 10^th June that he hoped all students could return to school in September, so long as we continued to make progress fighting the virus. It was unclear from his statement;

When in September he was referring to
Whether this will be full time or on a rota basis
When schools can expect to be told what the government plans are.

We will work with the LA to impress to the DfE quite HOW important it is that we have clarity on this as soon as possible .

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Announced via the press this week was the giant ‘catch up operation’ planned by the government to help students make up lost learning. All we know at present is that we can expect more details next week and that Gavin Williamson has said that it will not be a short term programme but is likely to be across a year or more.

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11/05/20

For clarity, the government guidance says that only those people who are in the “clinically extremely vulnerable” category and are shielding should not leave their home during this crisis. Everyone else may leave the home to carry out essential tasks, including attending the workplace if it is not possible to work at home. The message of 10th May confirmed the move from “ stay at home” to “ stay alert” and that those who cannot work from home may attend the workplace. The impact of that is still being assessed, but we now be moving in to a stage where it is no longer possible to accommodate as many people working as home as we have up until now and may require more people to attend the workplace, as more pupils attend.

The chart below summarises the different categories of staff, based on current guidance.

Category	How will I know if I am in this category?	Can I be expected to attend the workplace?	Do I need take any other action?
Clinically extremely vulnerable (shielding)	You will have received a letter from the NHS or your GP telling you to stay “shielded” for a set period of time.	No - people who have had a letter to confirm they are in the shielding category should not leave home	If you have not already shared with your manager the NHS or GP letter confirming you are in this category, you need to do that without delay.
Living with someone who is in the clinically extremely vulnerable (shielding) category	The person you are living with will have received a letter as above	Yes - with appropriate social distancing in place	Discuss with your manager any concerns or circumstances
Clinically Vulnerable	You have one of the conditions identified in the guidance, meaning that you are at higher risk of severe illness.	Yes - 11/05/20 guidance says extra care should be taken in observing social distancing and working from home should be supported- where possible. Where it is not possible, arrangements should be made to enable the person to stay 2m away from others on site.	Discuss with your manager any concerns or circumstances
Living with someone who is clinically vulnerable ( including someone who is pregnant)	The person you live with has a condition that comes under the “ clinically vulnerable “ category	Yes – 11/05/20 guidance says you can attend the workplace.	Discuss with your manager any concerns or circumstances
Self-isolating	You have, or someone in your household has, symptoms of the virus	No - you must not come in to the workplace if you have symptoms, but you can now get tested	You should obtain a test from one of the routes available, If the test is negative, you can be in the workplace.

Please be assured that our intention is to plan for a return to work and that planning will very much include understanding the position of staff. We want to work with you to achieve a successful transition and encourage you to discuss any concerns you may have.

Government guidance referred to in the above is accessed through these links.

27/05/20

From coronavirus outbreak faqs what you can and can't do
1. 1 My employer is asking me to come to work but I'm scared.

Employers and staff should discuss and agree working arrangements.

Employers should make all efforts to help people to work from home where they can. But where work cannot be done at home, employers should take clear, practical steps to help protect workers and create safe places to work, such as shift working or staggering processes. To identify the precautions needed to manage risk, your employer should discuss the workplace risk assessment with you to identify the practical ways of managing those risks.

If you remain concerned that your employer is not taking all practical steps to promote social distancing then you can report this to your local authority or the Health and Safety Executive who can take a range of action, including where appropriate requiring your employer to take additional steps.

We are publishing further specific “COVID-19 Secure” guidelines on how to make workplaces safe, which have been developed in consultation with over 200 business leaders and trades union organisations.!"

Implementing protective measures in education and childcare-settings

Is there a difference between recent NHS information on high risk and vulnerable people different from government guidance ?

In early May, the government published updated information on the vulnerable groups here and here; and the NHS also published guidance on risk groups.

Although there does seem to have been a change in the language used in the government guidance over time, the two sources of information are in fact very similar.

Government guidance refers to the shielded group as "clinically extremely vulnerable" .
NHS guidance refers to the shielded group as "At very high risk, clinically extremely vulnerable".

The chart below sets out the definitions of who is in this clinically extremely vulnerable( shielded )group.

This clinically extremely vulnerable group does not include pregnant women(unless they have a heart condition) and it includes people with severe asthma only.

Government Guidance	NHS Guidance
Who is 'clinically extremely vulnerable'?	People at very high risk (clinically extremely vulnerable)….include people who:
Solid organ transplant recipients	have had an organ transplant
People with specific cancers: § people with cancer who are undergoing active chemotherapy § people having immunotherapy or other continuing antibody treatments for cancer	are having chemotherapy or antibody treatment for cancer, including immunotherapy
people with lung cancer who are undergoing radical radiotherapy	are having an intense course of radiotherapy (radical radiotherapy) for lung cancer
people having other targeted cancer treatments which can affect the immune system, such as protein kinase inhibitors or PARP inhibitors	are having targeted cancer treatments that can affect the immune system (such as protein kinase inhibitors or PARP inhibitors)
people with cancers of the blood or bone marrow such as leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma who are at any stage of treatment	have blood or bone marrow cancer (such as leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma)
people who have had bone marrow or stem cell transplants in the last 6 months, or who are still taking immunosuppression drugs	have had a bone marrow or stem cell transplant in the past 6 months, or are still taking immunosuppressant medicine
People with severe respiratory conditions including all cystic fibrosis, severe asthma and severe chronic obstructive pulmonary (COPD).	have been told by a doctor they (sic)you have a severe lung condition (such as cystic fibrosis, severe asthma or severe COPD)
People with rare diseases that significantly increase the risk of infections (such as SCID, homozygous sickle cell).	have a condition that means they have a very high risk of getting infections (such as SCID or sickle cell)
People on immunosuppression therapies sufficient to significantly increase risk of infection.	are taking medicine that makes them much more likely to get infections (such as high doses of steroids)
Women who are pregnant with significant heart disease, congenital or acquired.	were born with a serious heart condition and are pregnant

The second group of vulnerable staff is identified as clinically vulnerable in government guidance and as high risk( clinically vulnerable) in NHS guidance.

Clinically extremely vulnerable people may include the following people. Disease severity, history or treatment levels will also affect who is in the group.

NB Pregnant women and people with asthma have always been, and remain in, this group.

Government guidance	NHS Guidance
Who is 'clinically vulnerable'?	People at high risk (clinically vulnerable)….include people who:
aged 70 or older (regardless of medical conditions)	are 70 or older
pregnant women	are pregnant
chronic (long-term) mild to moderate respiratory diseases, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema or bronchitis	have a lung condition that's not severe (such as asthma, COPD, emphysema or bronchitis)
chronic heart disease, such as heart failure	have heart disease (such as heart failure)
diabetes	have diabetes
chronic kidney disease	have chronic kidney disease
chronic liver disease, such as hepatitis	have liver disease (such as hepatitis)
chronic neurological conditions, such as Parkinson's disease, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), or cerebral palsy	have a condition affecting the brain or nerves (such as Parkinson's disease, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis or cerebral palsy)
a weakened immune system as the result of conditions such as HIV and AIDS, or medicines such as steroid tablets	have a condition that means they have a high risk of getting infections
a weakened immune system as the result of conditions such as HIV and AIDS, or medicines such as steroid tablets	are taking medicine that can affect the immune system (such as low doses of steroids)
being seriously overweight (a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or above)	are very obese (a BMI of 40 or above)

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