Blog – Latest stories tagged ''

Take part in the National Enterprise Challenge during Global Entrepreneurship Week - 14th - 18th November

The team behind the UK's largest schools enterprise competition (The Ryman National Enterprise Challenge) are delighted to be announced as an official partner for this year's Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) campaign.

As part of the partnership, they will be running a FREE enterprise competition open to schools during the week, which this year for schools is Monday 14th - Friday 18th November.

The challenge will be a real-life apprentice style task set by one of the UK's most recognisable companies. Groups of students will be able to take part in the challenge as part of a lesson or during their own time.

The challenge will be based on the students developing an advert for a major UK company and will require the students to research the market and consider who they will target along with embracing their creative and presentation skills.

The challenge can be run individually or in groups of no more than 6 students, but how they go about the challenge and the time they invest in the competition is left down to you although a minimum of 2 hours to work on the concept is recommended. There is no limit on the number of teams one school can enter, however students must get permission from the school and a teacher will be required to fill in their details on the registration form.

The challenge which is open to all UK secondary school students will be released at 08.00 on Monday 14th with students having until Friday 18th at 17.00 to upload their entries.

Five shortlisted groups will be invited to attend the Ryman National Enterprise Challenge finals event (summer 2017) as special guests where the winners will be announced.

To pre-register you interest please email gew.challenge@nationalenterprisechallenge.co.uk

You can also keep up to date by following events on social media @_tnec or Facebook.

UKCCIS Report: Responding to incidents and safeguarding young people

In August, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) released a guidance document for schools on dealing with ‘Youth Produced Sexual Imagery’ (YPSI) or more commonly known as ‘sexting’.

Many children and young people send inappropriate images as they see it as a form of ‘flirting’. Many do not realise that it is against the law to create, send and share indecent images of a person under the age of 18. The danger is that these images will be harnessed by adults and once they are in the possession of unscrupulous individuals, young people could be coerced into sending more images.

The 61 page document looks at the criteria that schools or colleges need to consider before making a referral to the police or social care about an incident. The guidance has been written in consultation with a number of agencies including the National Police Chiefs Council and Department of Education. The aim of the guidance is to support the Designated Safeguarding Leads(DSL) in their decision making when dealing with a YPSI incident. In recent months a number of police forces have highlighted concerns of schools referring incidents which do not constitute a police investigation.

In brief, the key points of the guidance are:

• Any YPSI incident in a school should be treated as a safeguarding issue.
  
  
• Schools may respond to a YPSI incident without involving the police.

• Criminal justice response should only be considered proportionate in certain circumstances.

• All police forces have a new charging code (‘Outcome 21’) which can be used for YPSI incidents. This new code is intended not to criminalise young people, especially if they are involved in a minor YPSI incident. The reasoning behind this, is that if they want to work with children, it will not show up on a DBS check.

• In the majority of cases, parents should be informed of their child being involved in a YPSI incident.

• Schools should update their policies and procedures in light of the new guidance

• ALL staff should receive training related to the YPSI guidance.

• In the vast majority of cases, staff should not view any YPSI images/video and delete them from a young persons smartphone.

The guidance offers information for schools on teaching about ‘sexting’ in the curriculum and has links to different resources which can be incorporated into PHSE schemes of work. In addition, there are sample questions that can be used with young people involved in YPSI incidents. The guidance also provides information for schools and colleges on appropriate measures for deleting ‘indecent’ images and ways in which to talk to students involved in a YPSI incident.

The guidance is important for primary, secondary and post 16 settings and DSL’s need to look at updating their policies and training staff on the new guidance and should use it in conjunction with the updated ‘Keeping Children Safe In Education’.

The full report can be downloaded here

Teaching Resources Support Premium Plus and Premium PSHE members can access resources on Healthy Relationships and SRE from their dashboard. Additional resources on Sexting and E-safety can be obtained from our sister site - E-safety Support,

This article was written by E-safety Consultant, Tim Pinto, who is currently running a series of YPSI Briefings around the Yorkshire region. To find out more, visit www.esafetyoffice.co.uk

Organisations across the country are holding events to thank volunteers for their dedication and contribution.

Volunteers’ Week is an annual celebration of the millions of volunteers who give up their time in the service of others. Events are taking place across the UK from 1–12 June to mark Volunteers’ Week, which this year is running for an extra five days to coincide with the Patron’s Lunch on 12 June.

NCVO kicked off Volunteers’ Week with the Big Celebration, an event hosted by BT to bring together organisations and parliamentarians to hear volunteers share their experiences, at the BT Tower.

Karl Wilding, director of public policy and volunteering at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which coordinates Volunteers’ Week in England, said:

"Volunteers’ Week is always a fantastic opportunity for a big celebration of the great work of volunteers across the UK. This year’s longer event, culminating with the Patron’s Lunch on the Mall, will allow even more people to take part in this special thank you to those who give up their time in the service of others.
Millions of volunteers make a huge difference to our society, and our lives would be worse without them. It is great to see that doing good to help other people is alive and well in this country. Whether they are running sports clubs, providing services for those in need or spending time with people at risk of loneliness, the UK’s volunteers are an inspiration for us all and it’s important we recognise them."

Over 14 million people volunteer at least once a month in the UK. Volunteers are involved in diverse range of roles in sports clubs, communities, schools and hospitals across the country, and they are vital to the work of countless charities and organisations.

Last year there were over 750 events organised for Volunteers’ Week, ranging from volunteer recruitment drives, to street parties, barbecues and award ceremonies. In addition to these celebrations, individual volunteers are being encouraged to take to social media to share their volunteering experiences and motivations using the hashtag #ivolunteer.

The end of Volunteers' Week will coincide with The Patron's Lunch on Sunday 12 June, a celebration of Her Majesty the Queen's lifetime of service to more than 600 charities and organisations to which The Queen acts as a Patron, on the occasion of her 90th birthday.

Volunteering facts

In 2012–13 volunteering output contributed an estimated £23.9bn to the UK economy. This is equivalent to over 1.5% of GDP (Cabinet Office’s Community Life Survey 2013-14).

There are over 160,000 voluntary organisations in the UK, many of whom rely on volunteers (NCVO’s UK Civil Society Almanac 2016).

14.2 million people formally volunteered at least once a month in 2014/15. 42% of people in the UK volunteer formally at least once a year and 27% do so at least once a month (NCVO’s UK Civil Society Almanac 2016).

Volunteers’ Week started in 1984, and is now in its 32nd year

To find out more visit www.volunteersweek.org and follow #volunteersweek and #ivolunteer on Twitter.