Thursday 16th June 2022

Transition afternoons

The pastoral team is working hard on developing the transition programme that will run during the course of next academic year. At the core of the programme will be a series of six afternoons dedicated to team-building, pastoral and familiarisation visits, supplemented by additional activities throughout the course of the year.

The six afternoon events will take place on the following dates:

• Monday 26 September 2022
• Wednesday 16 November 2022
• Thursday 26 January 2023
• Monday 27 March 2023
• Wednesday 24 May 2023
• Thursday 29 June 2023

These afternoons are protected, and no other activities will be taking place on these dates so that we can ensure all of our students are able to attend. Details of the full programme will be shared with you in the first half of the autumn term.

SES Designated Safeguarding Lead

Safeguarding is always our first priority at SES, and enhancing and developing a proactive and robust safeguarding culture has been a prime concern for the senior leadership team and the governors.

Over the last decade, we have seen a clear transfer of responsibility onto schools of social work, health advice and enforcement duties. It is important that we respond to this new level of responsibility and are diligent in all aspects of protecting the young people within our schools.

Safeguarding encompasses many areas of school life, the most obvious being direct child protection. Within this field alone there are relationships with external agencies, meticulous record keeping, regular case meetings and risk assessment management plans, all of which need to be considered together with the wealth of child-focused safeguarding topics such as mental health, child-on-child abuse and bullying, to name but a few.

Under the safeguarding umbrella comes additional obligations including: staff and student training, online safety, the single central register, keeping abreast of latest government guidance, and policy compliance. Every year, there is – rightly - more emphasis on the school to ensure the safety of its pupils.

With this in mind, we are pleased to be able to announce that we are moving to a full-time dedicated Director of Safeguarding across SES. This is a senior leadership position, in line with government guidance and reflecting the significance of safeguarding. We expect to have someone in post by September this year, and we look forward to updating you with news of the successful candidate in due course.

This week’s priorities

Staff INSET programme

We are investing in an expanded INSET programme to provide additional support for staff during the transition period. The outline INSET programme for the next two years has now been shared with colleagues and will be developed further once we have received any additional input and suggestions from teaching staff.

Staff consultations

The staff consultation process is still ongoing, and will be completed by the end of this term. As soon as that process is complete, we will share the details of the staffing structure with you.

What’s next?

Our priorities for the rest of this term are: completing the staff consultation process, supporting staff and finalising the INSET programme; finalising the full transition programme for pupils; and doing further work on the plans for refurbishment and redevelopment. We are also in the process of finalising a timetable for key projects, which will be shared with you in the next update.

Keeping you updated

The next update will be issued on Thursday 30 June.

If you have any questions regarding the transition process, you can write to us at stamfordcoed@ses.lincs.sch.uk.