Dear Subscribers
If you are an EPRS subscriber, you will have by now have received our message informing you that the Education Policy and Research Service will not be continuing in its present form from September, so sadly, this is our last set of updates.
We begin with school security, an ever more important topic. There is some updated guidance this week related to school site security, with 2 new links added to signpost school leaders to helpful additional resources. The school site security guidance is one of a suite of documents and templates dealing with a wide range of security issues.
Turning to Post-16 and further education, the DfE has published a new guidance document for T levels. The document is aimed at existing and potential T level providers and covers topics such as registering to offer T level courses, funding, and current government policy. And over on the Ofsted website, you can find the latest figures relating to inspections of further education and skills providers, including sixth form colleges. As of 30th June 2024, Ofsted had carried out 369 inspections of providers during the academic year. Of these, 12% were rated outstanding, 70% were rated good, 15% as requires improvement, and 3% as inadequate. As in previous years, the percentage rated good or outstanding was higher in sixth form colleges (89%) than in further education colleges (73%).
For those working in ITT, there is an update about the international relocation payments which are part of the recruitment drive to recruit physics and languages teachers from abroad. The application window for those training in 2024-25 has now closed, but the pilot scheme will run for another year. You can find more details here.
Moving on from ITT to early career teachers (ECTs), the DfE has published an updated list of the ‘appropriate bodies’ which quality assure statutory teacher induction. From September 2024, teaching school hubs will become the main provider of appropriate body services – the guidance states that ‘Schools are encouraged to choose their local teaching school hub for appropriate body services unless they have specific reasons to access these services from another appropriate body.’ From September 2024, local authorities will no longer be able to fulfil this role. You can find the list here.
Finally, as the academic year draws to a close, it may be a good time to review the pupil absence figures for the academic year 2023-24. As of the week beginning 24th June, the overall absence rate in schools for the academic year was 7.1%. Absence rates vary considerably by school type – 5.5% in state-funded primary schools, 9% in state-funded secondary schools, and 12.9% in state-funded special schools. The overall persistent absence rate was 20.2% – this is the percentage of pupils who missed 10% or more of possible school sessions.
A reminder that the new Handbook for Education Professionals: Bristol Guide 2024-2025 is published in August. It’s fully updated, and we are now running a special offer if you would like to be added to the waiting list or require a quote. Get in touch if you would like to know more or details are on the website:
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/education/expertiseandresources/bristolguide/order/
As I sign off from my final weekly updates email, may I wish you all a lovely summer break!
