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All schools - Headteachers, Designated Teachers

Update on statutory duties and more from Oxfordshire Virtual School

See below for important updates from Oxfordshire Virtual School to support you in meeting your statutory duties related to care-experienced children:

  • What your school needs to offer Children We Care For (PDF, 121Kb)
    See attached document that contains our non-negotiables. DTs must read this and ensure school expectations are shared with all staff as part of their continued professional development.
     
  • Virtual School 2024-25 Training and Support Offer (PDF, 260kb)

    Please see attached for the Virtual School’s 2024-25 Training and Support Offer. This outlines the training and support Designated Teachers (DTs), and staff working with our care-experienced children and young people, can freely access.

Bookings can be made here and you can also view the programme overview via the Virtual School website. Our offer is very popular, so I would recommend you book on without delay. Particularly for the upcoming Key Person Training and DT Induction Training which take place early on in September.

Key Person Training

Our Key Person Training starts on Monday 16 September (it comprises of 5 sessions over the year) and is relevant for staff working in settings supporting multiple care-experienced children and where you feel staff would benefit from some additional, specialist input in managing things day-to-day. Book on here.

DT Induction Training

The DT Induction Training (scheduled for Wednesday 18 September and Wednesday 19 March) is essential for NEW DTs as the DT has statutory responsibilities that must be upheld. We also deliver specific training for staff working in the Early Years and with Year 11s. Book on here.

As a reminder, the Designated Teacher (Looked-After Pupils etc) (England) Regulations 2009 require that the designated person is: 

  • a qualified teacher who has completed the appropriate induction period (if required) and is working as a teacher at the school (regulation 3(2)); or  a head teacher or acting head teacher of the school (regulation 3(3)).

Please make sure we are aware if your DT has changed and prioritise them attending our DT induction training. If you have any questions, do get in touch as we are here to help. For more information, you can also refer here. 

2025 Virtual School Conference

The 2025 Virtual School Conference will not take place at the end of June this time around as secondary schools, particularly, have found it hard to attend at this time of year. Instead, we will be moving our conference to the Autumn Term (October 2025). More details to follow.

New Designated Teacher Practice Day – Thursday 30 January

In response to feedback from DTs, and because we desperately want DTs to have a community of support and practice they can turn to, we are replacing our termly online network meetings with an in-person day at Unipart House. DTs can reach out to their Virtual School Workers at any time for support. However, we strongly recommend (particularly given that we won’t have a June conference this year) that your DT attends our practice day. The day has been designed to bring DTs and their allocated Virtual School Caseworkers together to reflect on shared experiences, what’s going well, identify/work through challenges and consider ways to work more effectively going forwards to improve the educational outcomes of our most vulnerable children and young people. The day will be facilitated by The Restorative Lab,  supported by Dr Hester Riviere and Virtual School staff. The Restorative Lab will facilitate a check-in with participants and do some relationship building activities. There will then be a focus on breaking the cycle of suspension using restorative approaches followed by a check out. We anticipate that it will be an incredibly valuable day.

There are limited places, so make sure you book on soon! Book on here. 

Corporate Parenting Pledge and updated protocol related to school absence during term-time. 

See above for OCC’s Corporate Parenting Pledge and for our updated protocol for term-time leave of absence applications for CWCF.   For your information, Jo Melhuish is the Head of Service for CWCF and Clare Pike is the Head of Oxfordshire Virtual School. 

Click here for more on what we do, who we are and how to contact us.

There is a wealth of experience in the Virtual School team across all phases of education. If you need advice or support, please do get in touch. We will continue to circulate termly newsletters (at the start of each term) to keep you updated, as appropriate. In the meantime, please do get in touch if you are unsure or feel we could do anything differently to support you in your duties. For more information, go to this page. 

Can I take this opportunity to thank for all that you do to support care-experienced children, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children/young people. What we do to improve outcomes for our care-experienced children can’t be achieved alone – we work in partnership with our schools. Click here to view an article that capture a few of our successes from 2023-24. 

All the very best for the start of the academic year 😊 

Best wishes, Clare Pike Head of Oxfordshire Virtual School (Acting)