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CV&CC Update 28th April 2020: Free School Meals issues Persist

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CoronaVirus & College Closure Update

Update 28th April 2020

 

  1. NEW ITEMS

 

  1. College Closure: Main Points
  • Clyst Vale site is closed, except our Emergency Childcare Provision (ECP) for children of key workers and vulnerable children (and deliveries, essential contractors, etc) ·
  • Parents and carers can contact us as normal, although we recommend e-mail
  • If you have any concerns about a student at Clyst Vale, please contact the school and ask to speak to a Designated Safeguarding Lead (Mr Sutton, Mrs Albutt, Miss McConnachie or Mr A Pearce). If this is not possible please contact MASH, The Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub: 0345 155 1071.
  • The College is closed until further notice. Please ignore continuing media speculation about likely dates for schools re-opening.

 

  1. Emergency Childcare Provision
  •  We are fully committed to maintaining our offer to look after the children of key workers (secondary age group) and vulnerable students
  • ECP will run daily Monday to Friday 08.30 – 17.00. Please contact us if you wish to discuss varying these hours (within reason) for individual children.

(If no children attend, the College will close at 12.00.)

  • ECP has moved to a booking system. Places for the next day can be booked until 9.00 p.m. the night before (including Sunday, for Monday). Or phone the number which has been provided to ECP parents.
  • There is now an expectation that vulnerable students should really be in school unless there are health issues or (in the case of SEND students) they would be safer at home. New guidance (19th April):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people

 

4. Remote Learning

  •  Teachers are working from home to set work on the day your child would have their lesson. The activities set should take 2-3 hours in Year 7 rising to 3-4 in Year 10.
  • Work will be sent by e-mail to students’ College e-mail accounts, and also assigned on Microsoft Teams.
  • LAPTOP SCHEME. The Department for Education has confirmed that Clyst Vale will receive 11 laptops under this scheme. There are very strict criteria which must be followed. There is no application scheme.. Guidance:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/get-help-with-technology-for-remote-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19

 

  1. Free School Meals 

 

  1. Public Examinations
  • Exam Results Days have been confirmed as the original dates of Thursday 13th August for A-Level and AS (and presumably vocational Level 3 courses, but we don’t know this); Thursday 20th August for GCSE (and vocational Level 1 & 2 courses ?).
  • Detailed guidance was published on 3rd April, although there are a number of loose ends and details still to be confirmed
  • There are 2 documents:
  1. For students:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878854/Letter_to_students_-_Summer_2020_grading.pdf

  1. For everyone (ie general guidance)

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/how-gcses-as-a-levels-will-be-awarded-in-summer-2020

(Ignore the “maths”: it’s for all subjects).

  • The Exam Boards are also producing even further guidance. We still await information from the Department of Education or Exam Boards as to how vocational qualifications will be assessed, and also the mechanics of how we send results to the Exam Boards.
  • Until the end of this week, it is still worth Year 11 students completing NEAs (coursework) and other work to complete the syllabus. Teachers are still taking into account attitude and the likely trajectory of a student’s progress !
  • We cannot discuss predicted grades with students, parents or carers at any stage. This is prohibited in the guidance.

 

  1. Trips and Visits
  • Very sadly, but very much the right thing to do and no surprise to anyone, neither of the visits to Bude or the Belgian battlefields will be going ahead. Please do not make any more payments.
  • Parents WILL be refunded in full for payments made for these visits, but it is not clear exactly when this happen, because we are in discussions with the companies and our insurers. Clearly, this is your money, so this is a priority for us and we will keep you posted.

 

  1. Changes to Schools’ Accountability
  • DfE will not hold schools/colleges to account on the basis of exams and assessment data from summer 2020 and that data will not be used by others, such as Ofsted and local authorities, to hold schools/colleges to account.
  • DfE will not be publishing school, college or MAT level performance data based on summer 2020 tests, assessments and exams at any phase. We will not be publishing, or sharing, school, college or MAT level accountability measures, such as Progress 8 and Level 3 Value Added, using the summer 2020 data. The performance tables that were due to be released in October and December 2020, and in January and March 2021, will not go ahead. We will also not publish any institution-level Qualification Achievement Rates in the National Achievement Rate Tables for the 2019/20 academic year.
  • DfE will not publish any national, regional, local or constituency statistics for any primary school assessments for the 2019/20 academic year – including Early Years Foundation Stage Profile, phonics, key stage 1, Multiplication Tables Check and key stage 2.
  • DfE will not share the educational performance data from 2020 exams and assessments with schools via Analyse School Performance, or through the ASP accredited service.
  • Schools and colleges will receive details of grades awarded directly from awarding organisations. DfE will not run the primary, secondary or 16-18 school and college performance data checking exercises and will not return any pupil level or institution level data on the 2020 grades to schools and colleges.
  • DfE will not use the 2020 exams data when setting criteria in other areas, such as teaching schools, English/maths hubs and free school applications.
  • Schools/colleges should not use the 2020 exams data as part of their teacher performance management process.

 

 

LINKS AND FURTHER INFORMATION

 

This is the Government’s guidance to parents:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/closure-of-educational-settings-information-for-parents-and-carers

The following link is the government’s advice to schools:

Guidance to Educational Settings About Covid-19

The next link is Devon County Council’s dedicated website for parents for Coronavirus advice

https://www.devon.gov.uk/document/schools-and-families/

 

Department for Education Coronavirus helpline:

Phone: 0800 046 8687  Opening hours: 8am to 6pm (Monday to Friday)

Email:

 

There are hundreds of support agencies’ links I could list for mental health and on-line issues. Here are just four, but all are tried and tested.

  • kooth.com has a load of information and on-line counselling; mainly mental health
  • childline.org.uk 0800 1111 has been around for ages, but is still one of the best helplines
  • thinkuknow.org.uk focusses on on-line issues including bullying, or messages that make you uncomfortable
  • Young Devon (Google it) is web-based, and points you to a wide range of possible services

 

Should you have any specific queries regarding Covid-19 and Clyst Vale, please e-mail Mrs Ann Hopkins (College Manager) on .

Kevin Bawn, Principal

 

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