About Birmingham Virtual School

What we offer

Birmingham Virtual School offers the following support to schools and other education providers.

Network meetings

Designated Teacher Network meetings are held in local network areas.

These are opportunities to share best practice and develop an environment for local solutions and interventions such as:

  • transition programmes
  • Raising Aspirations Programmes (RAPs)
  • avoiding exclusions

Corporate parent visits

  • Area education officers will attend educational settings on a regular visit cycle, advising and supporting staff on how to best meet the education needs of young people across the school or education setting at both operational and strategic levels
  • Training - Regular training events that support designated teachers, social workers, foster carers, residential staff and other key professionals to understand best practice in raising the educational outcomes for children with care experience
  • Personal Education Plans (PEPs) - Delivery of appropriate PEP training / advice to schools and partner agencies
  • Provide whole school strategic support in the writing of PEPs and Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) for children with care experience, and contribute directly to the quality assurance of PEPs
  • To promote and contribute directly to the actions within the PEP and the quality assurance of PEPs

Carers

  • Delivery of foster carer training within an allocated geographical area
  • Providing support to foster carers and parents by:
    • having problem solving discussions via phone calls or emails
    • encouraging and supporting them to develop strong relationships with schools and education providers, and
    • passing on their concerns to both their own supervising social worker and child’s social worker
  • Consider the need for specific resources to support foster carers, looked after children and young people to improve attendance or support other aspects of their education

Social care

  • Continuous support, training and advice for social care colleagues with respect to education policy and practice
  • Enable social carers to give educational advice and promote good practice to partner agencies
  • Together Birmingham Virtual School and social care colleagues will work with other professionals and agencies in an integrated way to achieve optimal outcomes for children in care. This will involve compiling and sharing information and specialist knowledge, in line with agreed protocols, to support children and young peoples' development and improve outcomes.
  • The virtual school have placement officers that can support with sourcing education provision for our Birmingham children in care.

Social workers can submit an education placement referral for children or young people aged 5 to 16 years via our contact form.

Pupil Premium

  • Advise, guide and review the use of Pupil Premium across the schools and settings and report on this to the Virtual School Headteacher
  • Plan for the use of the Pupil Premium Plus (PPP) top slice within your local school network area
  • To support schools in effectively planning and using PPP for the children or young people in their school
  • A review of the use of Pupil Premium for pupils in a school will be considered. Any ineffectual use will be addressed via a Corporate Parent school visit
  • Legislation, policies and procedures - keep schools and key professionals informed around current education legislation, policies and procedures, and funding opportunities related to children in care and promote good practice to partner agencies

Pupil Premium Plus Guidance 2024 to 2025

Direct work

Work directly with schools, carers, parents, and other agencies (particularly the Early Years Inclusions Service and SENAR) to support children in care that are at risk of a negative educational experience.

They may:

  • have been or are likely to be excluded
  • not be attending or currently able to engage positively with their setting
  • have recently experienced a change or multiple changes in care or educational placement
  • be new to care

Tier 1 universal support

Work alongside school staff and other professionals to put in place effective intervention work for the child or young person at tier 1 universal support and early help stages.

This could include supporting a child to catch up with missed work, reviewing timetables, advice on how to resolve transport difficulties or supporting the parent or carer to ensure a child attends their educational setting.

Attendance

  • Follow up instances of poor attendance as identified through attendance data, PEPs, Child Looked After (CLA) reviews or Pathway Plans
  • Support social workers and education setting in engaging other support services to increase participation

Transitions

To maintain direct support and contact with a child or young person during key transitions and make sure all other necessary professionals are actively engaged to support them.

Page last updated: 7 October 2024

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