The government has issued guidance on how University students will return and resume blended learning after the Christmas break - what does this mean for HE providers?
The government has issued its guidance on how University students will be able to return to university and resume blended learning after the Christmas break.
At the forefront of the government’s plan to assist higher education (HE) providers to protect its staff, students and the local community is the new rapid turnaround testing. This will allow those who are asymptomatic to self-isolate and avoid unintentionally spreading the virus. HE providers will be expected to work with local authorities, smaller HE institutions and students to ensure mass testing can be achieved for the student population.
It remains important for HE providers to advise and communicate to students the importance of rigorously following travel guidance, social distancing, the wearing face coverings and good hygiene practices.
The government has also issued the following guidance to HE providers:
Universities will be expected to evaluate courses and determine those which have practical elements such as health professions, teaching, music, dance, drama and performing arts. Students on those types of courses should return first.
Clearly the government envisages that a return to face-to-face teaching, placements and practical instruction will be available to students for the Spring term. This will require HE providers to ensure that teaching spaces are Covid-secure, namely that appropriate measures are in place such as hand sanitisers, cleaning regimes, distancing etc.
HE providers will also have to continue to provide on-line learning and ensure that the quality of teaching remains high. Regular communication and feedback from students will be essential to HE providers in being able to demonstrate high standards and ultimately value for money.
For larger HE institutions the pressure will be on to provide facilities for mass testing and to put in place procedures to manage how students will access the site, how it will be staffed and how this will all be communicated to students.
Perhaps however the biggest challenge that HE providers will face in the Spring is the temptation for students to gather, socialise and return to a ‘normal’ pre-pandemic student life in the wake of the vaccination programme. HE providers will therefore need to continue to encourage students to co-operate with Covid-secure measures and to follow government guidance. For students deliberately flouting the guidance then HE providers will need to carefully consider what steps can be taken, in line with disciplinary policies, to discourage such behaviour and set examples where necessary.
There’s been little evidence of interventions or financial management reviews this year and it appears the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has re-focussed on financial delivery. It’s also telling that there were no discernible changes to the reporting of financial irregularities in the Academies Trust Handbook 2022.
The Children’s Commissioner, Rachel De Souza, has recently published a report “Beyond the labels: a SEND system which works for every child, every time”, which she intends to sit alongside the DfE’s SEND Review (2019) and SEND Green Paper (2022) and which she hopes will put children’s voices at the heart of the government’s review of SEND system.
There’s greater opportunity than ever for parents, carers and guardians to voice any concerns they have relating to their child’s education and for their concerns to be heard and to be taken seriously. While most staff in schools and academies are conscious of their legal duties relating to complaints management, many are struggling to cope with such a significant increase in the volume of complaints they must manage.
We’re pleased to collaborate with Lloyds Bank, who recently asked us and audit and risk specialists Crowe UK to offer guidance that academy trusts would find helpful when considering setting up a trading subsidiary.
The DfE has published new guidance and opened the application process for window two of the Trust Capacity Fund (TCaF) for 2022/2023, with a fund of £86m in trust capacity funding focused particularly on education investment areas.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was established in March 2015. We now have its report. As you would expect with such a broad scope, the report is long and makes a number of far-reaching recommendations. In this article, Dai Durbridge highlights seven of the 20 recommendations, sets out how they could impact on schools and suggests what steps to take now.
Browne Jacobson’s education team has been named as winner of the ‘Legal Advisors to Education Institutions’ category at the Education Investor Awards 2022 for a record sixth time.
Since the new Suspensions and Exclusions Statutory Guidance was published, we have received a lot of questions about the use of managed moves. For the first time, the Statutory Guidance does explain what a managed move is, but in relatively broad terms and does not cover the mechanics of how a managed move should operate.
Over 3000 young people from across the UK and Ireland took part in a virtual legal careers insight event, aimed at making the legal profession more diverse.
Holly Quirk, an associate barrister in Browne Jacobson’s Manchester office, was awarded the Legal Professional of the Year Award at this year’s Manchester Young Talent Awards.
The risk of assault against staff is, sadly, something that all schools need to consider carefully. Here one legal expert explains what they can do to protect staff and ensure they fulfil their duty of care.
Browne Jacobson’s education team has again been confirmed as a national powerhouse after securing five Tier 1 rankings relating to Education in the latest edition of Legal 500 and maintaining a Band 1 UK-wide ranking for Education in Chambers & Partners UK 2023.
Created at the end of the Brexit transition period, Retained EU Law is a category of domestic law that consists of EU-derived legislation retained in our domestic legal framework by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. This was never intended to be a permanent arrangement as parliament promised to deal with retained EU law through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (the “Bill”).
In this article we set out the criteria, expectations and support schools should consider if notified they fall within this new category.
The words “Grammar schools” are once again being whispered in government and the question of whether the creation of new grammar schools will finally be implemented as a central focus to DFE policy has re-surfaced.
.jpg?variant=HeroImageTabletVariantDefinition)