As part of national Black History Month, The New Schools Network has focused on black leaders in education, and interviewed Clive as part of this.  You can see their write up of Clive’s interview here.

Sarah McBennett, Senior Primary School Adviser and Karen Riddell, Executive Prinicipal at St Mary's Primary in Deal and St Joseph's Primary in Aylesham could be found at the University of Belfast Teaching Fair last week.

After much very hard work, we congratulate the leadership team, Governors, local clergy, staff, helpers, parents, carers and, of course, children of St Gregory’s for securing Ofsted ‘Good’ in all categories having been ‘Requires Improvement’ over recent years. Inspectors were particularly praiseworthy of the step-change in success delivered in the last 12 months and the collegiate endeavour at every level of the Trust and the academy itself. The full report can be found here. Well done to all!

 

After three years of building work, to cater for the additional class in each year group, which will see the academy grown to a 4 form entry. His Excellency Archbishop John Wilson came to St John's Primary, Gravesend to celebrate and officially open the new classrooms. 

 

 

Ten lucky children from St Mary's Primary in Deal travelled to the 'New Scientist Live Exhibition' at the ExCel Centre in London last week to meet with a real Astronaut, Tim Peake. 

 

The children had a fabulous day and learnt a lot, they were all busy taking notes during the talks and had a lot of fun with the exhibits, which comes across in the picture. A memorable day for all! 

St Edward's Catholic Primary School in Sheerness invited Sisters from the shrine of Our Lady of All Nations in Holland and their Mother House in Slovakia, from the 8th October until the 13th.

 

Sister Bridget and Sister Crescentia met with all the children, answered questions and shared stories. Year 6 performed their beautiful liturgical dance of the Passion for our guests. Although the shrine is in Holland, the Nuns order is in Slovakia. The Nuns also visited their sister school in Sittingbourne, St Peter's Catholic Primary School. 

 

We are so grateful to the sisters for choosing our school and parish for their mission. They left us a present of a sewn, velcro hanging version of the image of Our Lady. The children enjoyed playing with this very much. The children were so polite and respectful during the day. Their visitors commented that our school is full of love and Jesus' values; that the children were 'alive' with learning and love; and that staff were modelling the values to the children all through the day. 

 

Our Parish also spent time with the Sisters, visiting Aylesford Priory in Maidstone and Sittingbourne Convent. They also enjoyed spending time with the Parish at Mass and the Bible Journaling group. 

A new outdoor area was opened at St. Richard’s by Sarah McBennett, Senior Primary School Improvement Advisor. She was joined by Stacey Clark, The Armed Forces Champion from Dover District Council and representatives of the British Legion, Ted Smith and John Dickenson.

 

A special assembly was led by Year 4 pupils to welcome the guests before everyone went outside for the opening ceremony. Sarah McBennett praised how the has school bid successfully for funds from the Healthy Pupil Capital Fund to build a new outdoor classroom, amphitheatre and fire pit. The school has also been lucky to win funding from the Arms Forces Covenant, and are using these funds to run a yearlong programme for all classes, to raise awareness of the armed forces. The children are working in a variety of outdoor settings, visiting trenches, castles, heritage sites as well as researching local war graves.  This is being led by former RAF serviceman Pete Evans.

 

Brexit – Guidance on data protection implications for the Trust and your Academy;

 

If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, most of the data protection rules affecting the Trust and its Academies will stay the same.

According to the Information Commissioners’ Office, the UK is committed to maintaining the high standards of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the government plans to incorporate it into UK law after Brexit.

As the Trust and its Academies already comply with the GDPR, there will not be much more to prepare for data protection compliance after Brexit.

Sharing data outside the UK

Some points to consider:

• Do you share any Personal Data (staff, pupil or parents) with anyone outside of the UK?
• Do you receive any Personal Data from anyone outside of the UK?

If you do not share data with anyone outside of the UK, there is no further action required – you should continue to comply with GDPR.

If you do share data with anyone outside of the UK, then a standard contractual clause will be the best way to keep data flowing.   Please contact Michelle Boniface, Data Protection Officer – DPO@kcsp.org.uk who can advise on the action is required, if any.

 

Trips outside the UK

Academies should not be sharing Personal Pupil Data with anyone outside of the Academy when on school trips, unless specific consent has been granted by the Parent/Carer/Guardian.

Post-Brexit the guidance from the Trust will not change, however travel advice should be monitored by the Academy.

Any agreement in place with a third party operator in relation to the trip, should ensure that no Personal Pupil Data is required to be shared.  Teachers travelling on the Trip, should retain copies of Personal Pupil Data, Emergency Contact Details and Medical information. 

If you are unsure, please contact Michelle Boniface, Data Protection Officer, DPO@kcsp.org.uk.

Sarah McBennett, Senior Primary School Improvement Adviser, will be representing us at St Mary’s University College , Belfast, Teacher Careers Fair during half-term on Thursday, 24^th October.  Attached is a picture of our initial promotional leaflet.

October 2019

The Spending Round in August announced significant funding for schools. Today we have set out how funding for next year (2020-21) will be allocated to local authorities and schools through the National Funding Formula. This fact sheet will help you to understand what this announcement means for schools in practice.

 

1- How much money has the department announced for schools overall?

• We have announced a total additional investment of £14bn in schools in England across the next three years. This is made up of cash increases to the schools budget for 5-16 education of £2.6bn in 2020-21, £4.8bn in 2021-22, and £7.1bn in 2022-23, compared to 2019-20.

 

• This investment is on top of an additional £1.5bn each year to fund increased pension costs for teachers.

 

• The settlement includes an increase of £780m to the ‘high needs’ budget next year, taking overall funding for children with complex Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) to over £7 billion – a 12% increase on this year.

We recognise the budget pressures that schools have faced over recent years. The additional funding reflects this, as well as continuing to make funding fairer across the country.

 

2- What does this mean for schools in my area?

Today we have published illustrative allocations for 2020-21 for schools and local authorities, through the schools National Funding Formula (NFF). The formula allocations mean that:

1. Every secondary school will receive a minimum of £5,000 per pupil next year, with every primary school getting a minimum of £3,750 next year, and £4,000 the year after.
2. We have lifted the gains cap on schools NFF allocations - meaning per pupil increases will no longer be capped. Those that are due gains will receive these in full.
3. Schools already attracting their NFF allocations can expect cash increases of 4% per pupil on average, subject to changes in pupil characteristics and numbers.
4. Funding for all schools can rise in line with inflation.

You can find the illustrative allocations at school and local authority level here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs-2020-to-2021.

To see a specific primary or secondary school’s allocation, open the link and download the ‘Impact of the schools NFF, 2020 to 2021’ spreadsheet. Go to the first tab: ‘look up a school’. Select your local authority and school from the drop-down lists at the top of the page. The excel document will then load a page showing the relevant data for your chosen school.

These figures are illustrative allocations, determined by the NFF (explanation in Section 3). The actual allocations schools receive will be determined by local authorities’ local funding formulae. In addition, academies final allocations might be impacted by trusts’ individual decisions e.g. to pool funding and allocate against need.

Today we have also published high needs allocations for each local authority for next year, calculated through the high needs NFF. These allocations are for 0-25 SEND services, including those provided by FE colleges and centrally by the LA, and for alternative provision. Special schools are funded from the high needs budget, as well as young people with complex needs in mainstream schools.

You can view the high needs allocations for each local authority for next year by downloading the ‘Impact of the high needs NFF, 2020 to 2021’ spreadsheet here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs-2020-to-2021.

 

3- When and how will local authorities and schools receive this extra funding?

Maintained schools will see the impact of this investment in April 2020, and academies from September 2020, in line with their respective financial years.

The schools NFF calculates an allocation for every primary and secondary school, based on individual pupil and school characteristics. Each local authority is then given the total funding for all schools in their area, and – within certain parameters – is responsible for designing a local formula that determines schools’ final allocations.

This means that the amount each school has been allocated through the NFF might differ from the amount each school actually receives. Schools will receive their final budgets in February/March next year.

We are committed to moving towards a ‘hard’ NFF as soon as possible, whereby a primary or secondary school’s budget is determined directly by a single, national formula. As a first step towards this, the minimum per pupil levels will be compulsory for all LAs to use next year within their local formulae.

You can see more information on the schools and high needs NFF here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-for-schools-and-high-needs.

Allocations for nursery and post-16 provision will follow in due course, in line with the normal annual cycle.

 

4- Where can I go for further information?

To find out more, you can:

• Follow the links to the funding tables to check how much additional funding has been illustratively allocated to schools and local authorities for next year. Consider sharing these links with school leaders and governors in your trust.
• Follow DfE’s social media content and consider sharing this on your social media channels by retweeting @educationgovuk on Twitter, or sharing content on Facebook.