20 September 2023 weekly update

Dear Colleagues,

I hope you had a restful summer break and the beginning of term has gone smoothly. I was really pleased to visit two schools during the summer holidays for results days. A big thank you to Deborah Stanley, headteacher of Maidstone Grammar School for Girls and her team who also welcomed Cllrs Rory Love and Sarah Hamilton on 17 August for post-16 and A-level results and to John Vennart and team at The Malling School who also welcomed Cllr Sarah Hamilton on 24 August for GCSE results.

Welcome to new headteachers

We are delighted to welcome 40 new Headteachers to our Kent schools this new academic year. Some have taken up headship roles for the first time whilst others have moved to a new school and some are new to Kent. I am sure the LA welcome adds to the warm reception you have had from other headteachers and we are keen to support you in this vital role. If you are new, you should have already received a letter from me and an invitation to our welcome event which is an opportunity for me to meet you and for you to meet the wider team, including the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills Councillor Rory Love. If you have not received the letter or invitations, please contact Wendy.Dunmill@kent.gov.uk.

Consultations

This term is going to be very busy with two large-scale public consultations which will impact all schools and settings. The first is the consultation on the SEND sufficiency plan informed analysis of capacity and designated numbers in Kent provisions, pupil travel patterns, destination and progression data around outcomes and transition, alongside forecast pupil data to identify gaps in both the capacity, type and geographical location of specialist provision. The purpose of this Sufficiency Plan, ably led by Assistant Director Education East (formerly AEO) Marisa White, is to inform and support the Local Authority in its development of strategic place planning for SEND educational provision in the medium to long term. The Sufficiency Plan will sit under the annual Commissioning Plan for Education Provision in Kent to inform strategic educational place planning. There are four key aims for the Kent SEND Sufficiency Plan.

1. Inform medium to longer term commissioning or decommissioning of places for children and young people with an Education, Health and Care Plan
2. Inform capital investment planning and future bids to DfE Wave programmes.
3. Inform high level discussions with providers around required changes to current provision​ to meet future needs.
4. Support the delivery of the Safety Valve​ programme, to bring Kent in line with other local authorities’ patterns of provision.

This consultation will be live in October and I strongly encourage you to engage and feedback your views, more information will follow in the near future.

The second consultation is related to the establishment of a countywide structure which devolves decision-making about the deployment of SEND resources to a more local level, led by education leaders. The concept of Localities precedes me and I want to thank the very many of you who have given of your time and expertise to shape the final proposal which we will be consulting on in November. This project has been led by Siobhan Price, Inclusive Education Lead and the District-level consultation meetings will take place as follows, with more detail to follow

Again I strongly encourage you to engage in this consultation which will impact on every school and setting when the final agreed proposal is implemented.

In view of the demands on both education leaders and on officer time that these consultations are making we have decided not to have our usual four Director HT Briefings this term. An LA update will be included in the Localities consultation meetings above and dates for online Teams HT briefings will be circulated in next week’s bulletin. I think I also need to clarify that TEP has introduced a charge for TEP HT briefings, but the LA has not. All LA HT briefings continue to be provided at no cost.

Staffing changes

As many of you are aware Marisa White, AEO in East Kent will be retiring at the end of this year after many years of outstanding service to KCC. We undertook a rigorous recruitment process, thank you to those of you that participated, and are in the process of appointing to the role subject to HR checks. We took this opportunity to review the AEO title and change it to Assistant Director Education, so Marisa’s role is now AD Education East (PDF, 151.3 KB), as this better reflects the strategic nature of the role.

For longer serving headteachers you may remember that each District had it’s own lead officer with a team. Those days are long gone and we now have four officers in place of the original 12, each with a substantive team of two staff. The role is evolving to help us in our SEND improvement journey by streamlining our decision-making processes. From this term, the Education ADs are taking the lead on commissioning of special school, satellite and Specialist Resource Base provision places in addition to their work commissioning mainstream places, to ensure the LA maintains an accurate overview of the education estate and that commissioning decisions are aligned to the capital programme. I want to take this opportunity to thank Marisa, Ian Watts, Nick Abrahams and David Adams and their dedicated teams for their commitment and hard work, as well as their professional generosity, in taking on such an active role in supporting SEND improvement.

You may be aware that Community Learning and Skills, the adult education service is part of my portfolio. Terry Burgess, who has ably led this service through some challenging times and secured securely Good judgements in Ofsted inspections is retiring. We wish him all the best for his new life and welcome Jude Farrell as the new interim Head of CLS.

Finally, PIAS (the PRUs, Inclusion and Attendance Service) has moved to be managed through the Education and Skills Division, so a big welcome from us to Simon Smith and his service. Simon has been working with us for some time now so that we can ensure a joined up approach to different types on inclusion-related work in schools.

RAAC, Data return and SEND

You will be aware of the ongoing issues relating to RAAC in schools which we wrote to you about late in the summer term. Officers have been working tirelessly to complete works over the holidays to minimise disruption at the beginning of the academic year and we continue to liaise closely with the key agencies so that any action can be completed swiftly.

For secondary colleagues - a huge thank you to those of you that have returned your Key Stage 4 pupil level files in the correct format which has enabled us to get an improved overview of the picture of attainment across the county. If you haven’t submitted yet, then its not too late and if you have any questions please contact Wendy Murray by emailing Wendy.Murray@kent.gov.uk.

There is much to update you on related to SEND, including the publication of the Accelerated Progress Plan (APP), so next week’s introduction will have a SEND focus.

I’m taking the opportunity to highlight that on the Saturday 30 September, Ian Watts and sixteen colleagues and associates who either work for or with KCC will be climbing Mount Snowdon, the highest peak in England and Wales to raise money for Cancer Research UK. Any donations are gratefully received and can be made through the Just Giving website

And finally, you will have noticed that today is not Friday - in response to feedback from headteachers we have changed the day that the KELSI bulletin is circulated to schools to Wednesday afternoons and I hope you enjoy reading this bulletin mid-week.

With best wishes

Christine McInnes
Director of Education