This article has been brought to you by Slough Borough Council's Associate Director, Children and Families, Michael Jarrett on behalf of the DfE, for the attention of all schools.
You may remember that since June 2020 the DfE have been offering ongoing support to schools via the COVID Recovery School to School Support Offer, ensuring schools are able to overcome the challenges they are facing as a result of the pandemic. We initially expected the offer to complete at the end of the spring term, however, we can now confirm that support will be continuing until the end of the academic year 2020/21.
As schools re-open to all pupils, we expect they will continue to need support with a range of COVID-impact issues, which may include: planning for and managing the wider re-opening of schools, addressing gaps in learning (including the use of catch-up funding and the National Tutoring Programme), delivery of remote education during for isolating pupils, re-engaging pupils in learning, as well as other challenges related to COVID-19.
Participating schools will be matched with a supporting system leader who will work with the school to address the areas of COVID impact. Schools starting support from March will have until the end of the summer term 2021 to complete it.