"The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realise, the Less I know"
Events this week
September 15 - September 24 - Great British Beach Clean 2023
September 18 - September 22 - Professional Care Workers’ Week 2023
September 18 - September 24 - Organ Donation Week 2023
September 18 - September 24 - National Coding Week 2023
September 18 - September 24 - National Eye Health Week 2023
September 18 - September 24 - Jeans For Genes Day 2023
September 19 - Youth Mental Health Day 2023
September 22 - EveryWoman Day 2023
September 23 - Shine Night Walk London 2023
Policy of the Week
Complaints Policy
A complaints procedure is a set of processes that allow a complaint to be made, recorded and dealt with effectively
(Reading this can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 60 mins)
Please remember to review this in your policy/legislation review workbook)
Videos of the week
Brain Hacks
How do we keep our brains healthy? And is there anything we can do to help strengthen crucial connections and keep our minds younger in the process? In this film, science journalist Melissa Hogenboom sets out to understand more about the brain's capacity to respond to change, helping us to learn and to heal. She looks at the most cutting-edge scientific research and has her own brain scanned and analysed, with intriguing results.
(Watching this can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
Event of the week/month
Jeans for Genes Day Mon 18 - Sun 24 September
The Jeans for Genes campaign raises awareness of the daily challenges faced by those living with a genetic condition and raises money to fund projects that make a tangible difference to the lives of those affected.
(This can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Completing activities Approx. 60 mins)
Safeguarding & ED & I
Children's social care
NSPCC Learning has published the second podcast episode in a two-part series on children’s social care in England. The episode features experts from the NSPCC and focuses on proposals set out in the government’s strategy 'Stable homes built on love' published earlier this year. Discussion points include: reforms to family support services; the effects of a family-first approach to children’s social care; and potential barriers to implementing reform.
(Listening to this can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
How we’re safeguarding students and learners from radicalisation
Education settings play an important role in keeping young people safe from different forms of harm, including from substance abuse, gangs, neglect and sexual exploitation.
All schools and registered childcare providers are required to help prevent the risk of people supporting terrorism or become terrorists. This is known as the Prevent duty.
(Reading these can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
Mild Illness and School Attendance - UK Government
This year the UK Government is kicking off the school term with a discussion on issues related to mild illness and school attendance. An issue which has been particularly active since the commencement and draw down of the UK Government's response to the COVID-19 period. Many parents are increasingly unsure of how to act when a child reports themselves to be ill. In addition the growing instability of world affairs has translated in increased anxiety among pupils. The UK Government is committing itself to mitigating this rising issue, with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) producing new guidance on medical absences and the Department for Education writing to school leaders on the matter. To read both the letter, and the RCGP guidance, please follow the link below:
(Reading these can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
Revised Prevent Duty Guidance - Home Office
The PREVENT Duty was first published in 2015 in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act. The legislation has since been a staple of school leader responsibilities. The duty was originally envisaged as a response to the increased level of youth radicalization, that year. The legislation though, is now nearly a decade old. In that time the UK security environment has changed due to growing instability in the global system, the exponential rise in the power of social media and in the past few years, a huge shift in personal technological capacity. The revised PREVENT strategy seeks to address the novel vulnerabilities formed in the wake of these modifications to the UK's threat profile.
(Reading these can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 40 mins)
Child Vulnerability and VR Technology - NSPCC
The use of VR technology is becoming both more affordable and as a result more widely available. This has itself led to an increase in users. The platforms that utilize this ground breaking technology, are in many respects an unknown to regulators and educators alike. Concepts such as multi-user spaces and phantom touch, in addition to the ability to access restricted portions of the internet, whilst being hooked up to one's physical body opens new avenues of concern. The NSPCC has recently commissioned both a report and study into the vulnerability windows opened by VR technologies. To find out more please follow the link below:
(Reading these can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
Vaping and Children - Action for Children
If you've been out and about this summer enjoying Britain's "wonderful" summer weather, you likely will have seen congregations of school age children accompanied by vape sticks. Within the space of a few years, it has become shockingly common place for those underage to be in the possession of these devices. Many months ago, I mentioned the danger that their use would become endemic among this demographic. Often brightly coloured, often sold at off-licences and often flavoured with sweet tastes which seem almost to be designed for children. I have sadly been proved correct over the past eight weeks or so. It is of vital importance that your pupils are well aware of the potential health implications of this new trend. Action for Children have published a page on the matter, and I believe it's well worth a read. Please follow the link below to find out more:
(Reading these can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
#WakeUpWednesday: Top Tips for Setting Boundaries around Gaming
Almost half (46%) of 8- to 11-year-olds in the UK play online video games with people that they don’t necessarily know. While 55% of parents of young gamers worry that their child might be pressured into making expensive in-game purchases.
Most children find gaming immensely enjoyable, but its volume of potential risks – and capacity to influence behaviour – often make it problematic for parents. Our #WakeUpWednesday guide suggests some sensible ground rules for promoting safer, healthier gaming habits.
(Reading these can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 20 mins)
The Big Ambition - Have your say!
Hi, my name is Rachel and I’m the Children’s Commissioner for England.
I have launched this survey, The Big Ambition, to hear from all children and young people in England aged between 6 and 18 years old. Adults can answer on behalf of a child or young person aged up to 18.
(Reading these can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 20 mins)
Brighton drugs gang jailed after using boys as slaves
County line dealers exploited teens as disposable cannon fodder
(Reading these can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 20 mins)
Health & Safety
What exactly is risk management?
Most people are more familiar with the consequences of a health and safety failure — the incident or failure itself, post-incident investigations, analysis and corrective actions — than the preventative measures employees, supervisors and management take every day to keep workplaces healthy and safe. After all, when a hazard is identified and eliminated before causing an incident, it doesn’t make headlines. That’s a good thing, but it also means that our society tends to focus on the reactive side of health and safety.
It’s true that both reactive and proactive measures are important for a well-rounded health and safety system. This article will discuss the benefits of a proactive process: health and safety risk management.
(Reading this can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 20 mins)
Disabled Employees Continue To Struggle At Work Despite Improvements, Survey Finds
Disabled employees continue to face individual and wider barriers in the workplace and in the working culture, according to Business Disability Forum’s latest survey.
(Reading this can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 20 mins)
Wider Curriculum
Practitioners ‘will not get into trouble’ for sharing information to protect children, says data watchdog
UK Information Commissioner's Office issues guidance to address frontline professionals' concerns that they will breach data protection rules by sharing information in safeguarding cases
(Reading and listening to this can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
A trauma-informed approach to social work: practice tips
Community Care Inform’s guide explains how to apply the five principles of a trauma-informed approach to your social work practice
(Reading and listening to this can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
Discharge of care orders: filling the evidence gap
Little is known about how, when and why care orders are discharged, despite the significant implications of such decisions for children and their families. A 2023 study aims to address this
(Reading and listening to this can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
‘I was called “Mr Taliban” by a colleague’: one social worker’s experience of Islamophobia
Social work is not immune from the Islamophobia that afflicts wider society and needs to prioritise tackling it, according to a practitioner who has experienced this form of racism within the workplace.
(Reading and listening to this can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
Government launches strategy to ‘rapidly reduce’ suicide rate that has remained stuck since 2018
Five-year plan to reduce the 5,000 deaths by suicide each year in England will target groups including autistic people, those in contact with mental health services and young people, among whom rates have risen.
(Reading and listening to this can be counted towards your 20% off the Job learning – Approx. 30 mins)
