Over the summer and into the autumn, Prospect’s Education and Children’s Services Group has continued to meet with the Department for Education (DfE).

We have been attending fortnightly stakeholder advisory sessions with DfE officials, ministers, local government representatives, school leadership as well as other education trade unions.  

These meetings have been focussed on schools opening, and have given us the opportunity to engage at the most senior levels and raise points about issues such as:

• safe systems of working for staff, pupils and visitors and the role of the Health and Safety Executive in supporting this
• the role of Ofsted and accountability measures
• assessment points, plans for examinations and the impact of missed learning on these
• the need for detailed and consistent guidance particularly on social distancing and dealing with outbreaks in settings
• the importance of ‘testing’
• changes to the statutory framework
• a perceived reduction on the attention to other pedagogical activity including school improvement
• the challenges of providing remote learning for educators and children and young people
• the impact of different Tiers    

While many of the issues, as far as employees are concerned, relate to school leaders, teachers and support staff regularly working in schools, your Group Executive Council (GEC) has been instrumental in identifying issues of particular relevance to Prospect ECS members and we will continue to engage in this consultation on your behalf.

As we did using our survey in the summer, we are keen to hear from members with any challenges on schools that you might have.

In addition, Prospect regularly meets the DfE on SEND and I will be scheduling regular dialogue with the DfE schools improvement leads over the winter.