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Cambridgeshire Schools Newsletter

Easter Holiday HAF Programme

The Easter HAF Programme starts next week and runs until Thursday 17 April. Eligible pupils can attend a registered holiday scheme for up to 16 hours, fully funded. There are spaces remaining with many HAF registered holiday schemes. Children will receive a daily meal and encouragement to participate in the enriching experiences on offer.

Additional eligibility criteria details - Click here to request a booking code

Any questions please email: HAF@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

Supporting the mental health and workplace wellbeing of CCC school leaders

If you know, you know ...

... but if you are not aware, a series of articles over the coming weeks aims to share the range of support which is on offer to CCC School Leaders. The graphic below is taken from the 2024/25 Primary Offer Booklet, outlining the tiers of support and a range of signposting.

Where can you save this information for ease of access - either for yourself as a school leader or so that you can support other school leaders?

You can contact me for further information and I will try to help. My role as Professional Development and Improvement Adviser, working with the School Improvement Service for over 20 years, has a strong focus on supporting leadership, including mental health and workplace wellbeing.

Juliet Adloune

Schools Staff Survey - LGBT+ Toolkit for Schools

Education Safeguarding and the PSHE Service are working together to revise the Cambridgeshire LGBT+ Toolkit for Schools. We are very keen to hear the views of colleagues working in schools about their experiences and needs. This will help us ensure that the guidance covers the area and topics you would find most relevant to your setting.

Please complete the survey by Friday 25 April 2025:
Developing and Reviewing LGBT+ Schools Guidance Survey

If you have any queries please contact Cathy Murphy

Change to YOUnited Neurodevelopmental Assessment Process

YOUnited would like to inform you of a change in referral pathway for school-age children in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

There is no longer a requirement for an Early Help Assessment to be completed as part of a referral for neurodevelopmental assessment. The new referral form can be found on the website www.cpft.nhs.uk/how-to-refer and has been updated to incorporate information required by our service at the point of referral.

Please note a Childhood Developmental Questionnaire will need completing by parent/carer and submitted with the new referral form.

YOUnited cannot accept referrals on previous versions of forms from the 7th April 2025.

Cambridgeshire Primary School Improvement Offer 2025-2026

We are pleased to be able to share with you the Primary School Improvement Offer for 2025-2026 Academic Year. The Primary School Improvement Offer covers a wide range of services for schools, many of which have been amended and updated to reflect changing needs and demand from schools and service users. Please take the time to review the Primary Offer and identify the support you wish to subscribe to for the next academic year.

The deadline for response is Friday 9 May 2025.

If you have any questions about the Primary Offer, please contact the relevant service lead for more information before submitting your response. Service leads are identified within the Primary Offer. The response form can be accessed through the link in the Primary Offer on pages 9 and 14.  

Please submit just one response per school. 

We look forward to continuing to work with you over the coming year.

Kind regards

Emma Fuller

Refer a colleague, friend, or family member to us and receive £1000 bonus for your school

Do you know a parent or carer, colleague, friend or family member who could offer a safe, secure, loving home to a child or young person? If you support and promote Cambridgeshire County Council fostering recruitment team by advertising this incentive in your staff newsletter and directly to parents through parent mail, then we will pay your school a £1000 award once the referral is approved.

There are children and young people in Cambridgeshire who can no longer live with their birth families. By recruiting more foster carers, we can ensure these children and young people remain within their local community.

We welcome enquiries from anyone who is over 21 and is dedicated to changing a young life for the better. For us, it’s all about the match of the child to our foster carers. The children and young people in our care come from a diverse range of backgrounds, and we look for the same in our foster carers.

Simply email their details to fostering@cambridgeshire.gov.uk and one of our friendly recruitment officers will contact them.

*T&Cs: The payment will be paid once your colleague, friend or family member has been approved as a foster carer at panel.

With your help, we can provide even more children with the love, security, and support that they need and deserve. To find out more about fostering, visit the Cambridgeshire County Council fostering webpage or call 0800 052 0078.

Kay Turner, Senior Fostering Recruitment Officer

Free CPR training with East Anglian Air Ambulance

East Anglian Air Ambulance is offering CPR and defibrillator training, aiming to ensure patients in East Anglia suffering an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest receive quality, early CPR from the public and professionals. This ensures more people in the region have the best possible chance of survival and recovery.

EAAA helps others to learn these skills to save a life by offering free one-hour training. At the end of the session, attendees will be confident in delivering bystander CPR and the use of a defibrillator (AED). In 2024, EAAA trained over 30,000 people in life-saving skills.  

You can book onto a CPR Training course at: CPR training - East Anglian Air Ambulance

Kick start the academic year with a residential visit to Burwell House

Autumn residentials are ideal for kickstarting learning at the beginning of a new year. They offer students the opportunity to learn valuable skills and forge lifelong memories.

Burwell House allows pupils to build resilience and self-reliance, in a way that fosters curiosity, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Away from home, students are challenged to adapt to new situations, overcome obstacles, and work as a team. Shared experiences foster bonds of friendship; allowing students the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive.

Activities at Burwell House include TV studio, low ropes, team building and orienteering.

Update from the Asthma Friendly Schools Programme

We have been working with the Healthy Schools Service and Peterborough City Council to find the best way for the Asthma Friendly Schools (AFS) programme to continue when the current funding period and, subsequently, the Asthma Friendly Schools team finishes on 31st March. The Healthy Schools team have kindly agreed to hold all the necessary information that schools may need to start their AFS journey on their website. Going forward, the AFS audit tool will be digitalised to enable self- completion. Each submission will be reviewed against the guidance for successful completion provided by the AFS team and those schools that satisfy the required criteria will be sent a link to download a certificate of achievement. This will be endorsed and signed by the Clinical Lead for Children and Young People’s Asthma for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough within the Integrated Care Board.

In the meantime, the details of all schools currently engaged with the AFS programme have been passed to the Healthy Schools team so that ongoing contact can be resumed throughout the Summer term.

Any queries, please contact: healthyschools@healthyyou.org.uk

Advice from the CYP Community Asthma Team for keeping well over the Easter Holidays

Please share this with parents

Please remember these tips during the Easter holidays

Prepare for pollen season - know your pollen triggers

It is important to build up the medication your child needs for upto two weeks before your child's symptoms usually begin.Asthma and Lung UK have a pollen calendar to help you to track your child's symptoms: Asthma and Lung UK pollen calendar

How to reduce your risk of hay fever symptoms

These steps will reduce your risk of your child’s symptoms getting worse, or an asthma attack as a result of hay fever.

1. Take any preventer or maintenance treatment every day, as prescribed. This will help reduce the risk of their lungs reacting to pollen. When you have asthma, this is especially important, as the asthma preventer inhalers contain a low dose of steroid, which reduces inflammation that can be triggered by pollen.
2. Always carry a reliever inhaler, (usually blue) with you. You might also call this a rescue inhaler. These inhalers quickly relax the muscles in your airways and ease your asthma symptoms on the spot.
3. Try to stay away from their triggers, if possible. Take extra care if you’re out and about when it’s warm, humid and windy, or if the pollen count or the level of pollution is high. Check the weather on your TV or online or use a weather app on your phone to get weather and pollen alerts.
4. Take hay fever medicines. They help reduce the allergic reaction that could be making your symptoms worse.
5. Call your GP surgery or 111. They can help if your asthma symptoms get worse.

Go to Allergy UK to find the steps to reduce your risk of your child's symptoms getting worse, or an asthma attack as a result of hay fever: Allergy UK: Allergic rhinitis and hayfever

Physical Education Conference - Monday 19 May 2025, St Ives

We are excited to update schools and settings with further details about the PE conference (Monday 19 May 2025, St Ives).

The focus of the event will be inclusive practice, and will help schools develop understanding of the enablers, barriers and opportunities for Improving the PE experience in schools. Along with a selection of exciting workshops, and the marketplace, we are privileged to have Neil Moggan - Founder of Future Action & Trauma Informed PE as our keynote. Neil will be encouraging us to reflect on how can we create a safe, inclusive, and supportive PE environment for all students, including those affected by trauma.

Please book via

https://cambridge.council.bookingbug.com/home/w2499204

Please contact Ian Roberts for more information

Department for Education Sector Email

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Nene Park offers FREE KS2 class visits

Thanks to generous funding from the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, Nene Park Trust are offering local schools free half-day educational visits to their Rural Estate near Castor.

KS2 students will be given a hands-on learning experience, where they will:

• Discover how land is managed for both food production and wildlife conservation

• Explore nature using maps and plant identification

• Get their hands dirty sampling soil types

• Create their own seed bombs to support biodiversity

Twenty-five fully funded visits are available from April to October. If you’re interested in booking a free visit, get in touch at education@neneparktrust.org.uk.

Training and Events

PE for Primary ECTs & Inexperienced Teachers

1st May 2025, 9.30am-4pm. Papworth Village Hall, Papworth Everard. Cambridgeshire maintained school £140, all academies and non-cambridgeshire maintained schools £162.

Audience: ECTs and those teachers returning to the profession in the primary phase who want to develop their understanding of the national curriculum of PE, health and safety implication and how to deliver high quality PE, EYFS, KS1 & KS2

Small Pool Operators Courses

Two day course (£302) and One day update courses (£171) available in March and April.

Venues: The Grove Primary, Cambridge, and/or Bassingbourn Primary, Bassingbourn

Audience: All staff who monitor small pools in school.

PE & School Sport Conference

19th May 2025, 9.30am-4.30pm. Burgess Hall, St Ives. Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Schools (including Academies & Independent Schools): £125 each,

Out of County: £150 each

Audience: All people involved in delivery of PE & School Sport in Primary, Secondary and SEND schools and settings.

Teaching & Developing RSE in Primary & Special Schools

Teaching RSE - 30th April 2025, Developing RSE 14th May. 3.30pm-5.30pm. Online. £40 subscribing schools, £50 for non-subscribing schools.

Audience: PSHE Leads and teachers in primary and special schools.

Digital Lifestyles for Primary Schools

6th May 2025, 9.30am-11.30am. Online. £40 subscribing schools, £50 for non-subscribing schools.

Audience: Primary Schools

PSHE Network Meetings for Primary & Special Schools

7th May 2025, 2.30-4.30pm at Cambs FA, Histon, OR 20th May 2025, 2.30-4.30pm at Armstrong House, Huntingdon. Network meetings, part of the Wellbeing Subscription, include national and local updates on PSHE and opportunities to share practice. Non-subscribing schools or those from schools beyond Cambridgeshire are welcome to attend but there is a small charge of £45, but please note the content will be focussed around the Cambridgeshire materials and local support.

Audience: PSHE Leads

Network meting for RE

For primary and Secondary schools. 11^th June 25, 16:00 -17:15 at Monkfield Primary School, Cambourne, CB23 5AX and Robert Arkenstall Primary, Haddenham, CB6 3UA.

Cost – Free

Using Story in your RE Curriculum

For Primary teachers,– 6^th May 25, 15:30 – 17:00, via Teams, Cost LA Schools £29 and all others £39

Moderating Year 6 Writing

For Year 6 Teachers, 24th April 2025, 13:30 – 16:00

Face to Face Winhills Primary, St Neots - £60

English Subject Lead Day

Primary English Subject Leads, 28th April 2025, 08:45 – 14:30

Face to Face Winhills Primary, St Neots - £95

Maths Subject Lead Day

Primary Maths Subject Leads, 20th May 2025, 08.45 – 14:30

Face to Face Winhills Primary, St Neots - £95

Schools and settings option 2: A 90-minute whole-staff CPD session.

For any school setting needing music support various courses available. Location: At your school. £95 per session.

For anyone delivering music in the classroom. Wednesday 11th June 16:00-17:00. Location: online. Cost: £30 per attendee.

Forces and Motion (KS4 Physics Subject Knowledge Enhancement)

For Secondary Teachers. Tuesday 29th April, 16.00 – 17.15. Online webinar. £20

Senior Science Technician – All you need to know about the role and more!

For Science Technicians. 3 sessions, starting Thursday 08th May, 13.00 – 14.30. Online webinar. £90

Science Teacher Conference – Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

For Primary and Secondary Teachers. Monday 23rd June, 09.00 – 15.30. Peterborough. £25

Level 2 Award in Curriculum Based Outdoor Learning

For all teachers and teaching assistants. Friday 4 July, 9.30 – 16.30. In person at Ferry Meadows, Peterborough. £425.

Quick links

SEND Information Hub (Local Offer)

SEND OAP toolkits - Learn Together

Cambridgeshire Learn Together

Cambridgeshire County Council

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Teaching School Hub

Early Years, Childcare, and School Readiness Service

Knowledge Hub

Education Senior Management Team January 2025

Cambridgeshire Schools Newsletter – Learn Together

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