This week's question is about responding to incidences of harmful sexual behaviour between pupils

How should staff respond if they witness or are made aware of harmful sexual behaviour between pupils, even if the pupils involved say it was just a joke?

Even when pupils describe inappropriate sexualised comments, gestures, or physical actions as “banter” or “a joke,” staff must not dismiss or downplay the behaviour.
These incidents could be signs of harmful sexual behaviour (HSB), and must be treated seriously, following school safeguarding procedures.
Staff should:

• Respond calmly and sensitively.
• Reassure the child that they were right to speak up.
• Record factually what was said or observed (no interpretation).
• Report to the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) immediately.

It’s essential that schools create a culture where children understand boundaries and that all inappropriate behaviour is challenged consistently.

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The consultation for OFSTED I am sure that you have been keeping up to date with the comments and views in the educational press regarding the OFSTED consultation. Sections in Bulletin have attempted to chunk what is being proposed. The CST has submitted their response, which focuses on six recommendations, as well as answers to some specific consultation questions,

1. Review the toolkits to address imprecise or unnecessary criteria
2. Simplify and clarify the grading scale approach to grading
3. Merge the developing teaching and curriculum evaluation areas
4. Make the inclusion evaluation area an aggregation rather than an additional set of criteria
5. Ensure the methodology that replaces deep dives can support consistent evaluations
6. Reduce the proposed volume of monitoring activity

There are mixed views across the sector, and CST have stated that their recommendations have tried to reflect that.  

You can read more about the CST response in an article written by Steve and published by TES yesterday. You may also be interested in an article written by Rory Gribbell, Director of Strategy and Engagement at Ofsted, which reflects on the changes Ofsted is likely to make and cites their response.

If you’re yet to respond to the consultation and would like to, there is still time; the consultation closes today

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These are the general points for improvement across all our schools from the spring term safeguarding audits. We will go over these in the DSL meetings so everyone is clear.
At school level these are the key elements to be working on

• Ensure that any CPOMS recording highlights school actions clearly, that those actions have been completed and that a note of when that action was completed and by whom is also noted
• Any minutes from social care, core groups, conferences etc are put onto CPOMS. If these are not forthcoming, then schools must ensure they are taking their own notes at these meetings, so there is a clear record of school actions.
• Ensure that your filtering and monitoring checks are done at least once this summer term - your IT managed service partner should be doing this with you (if not for you), it is literally just a spot check it is working.

At central level:

• We are centralising due diligence records for AP use. Thanks to DHJS for completing the paperwork for The Complete Works. If you are using AP currently, you should have due diligence paperwork. Please send over a copy to either Lucy or Gary so we can collate this resource. Please note you MUST still carry out your own due diligence checks over time, the paperwork collated will be a starting point.
• Once the positive handling national consultation has finished - the positive handling policy will be updated
• Confirm that 3rd party contractors provide safeguarding update training on a yearly basis.

For info: Having checked in with CPOMS directly, low level concerns about staff cannot be recorded unless we buy a separate module - you need to have your own, confidential, way of recording these issues.

The final deadline for budgets is 23rd May 2023 so we are working back from there - here is what is coming up:1. Within the next 2 management account meetings (1 before Easter and 1 just after Easter) - additional time will be added on to the meeting to go through the budget setting process. Please ensure that you set aside enough time to do this2. Should you request or need another meeting to finalise your budget, these are set aside for mid May. Please get in touch with the finance team to arrange.Alongside this work with you as headteachers, the finance team are also working with your in school finance colleagues to understand better what is going into the following budget lines ('buckets') - part of our 'other expenditure'

• Line 4000 - Curriculum
• Line 4135 - Curriculum support
• Line 5125 - Whole school subscriptions
• Line 5140 - Professional services
• Line 5145 - General office costs
• Line 4136 - Inclusion support service

KS2 SATS week this year is 12th May

• Monday, May 12: English grammar, punctuation, and spelling papers 1 and 2
• Tuesday, May 13: English reading
• Wednesday, May 14: Mathematics papers 1 and 2
• Thursday May 15: Mathematics paper 3

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