Virtual School

Help at Hand service by The Children’s Commissioner

Help at Hand is the Children’s Commissioner’s advice and assistance service for children in care, children who have a social worker or are working with social services, children living away from home and care leavers. Children, young people, or their advocates can get in touch with Help at Hand for free by phone, website or email.

ePEP

We are pleased to announce that the updates to the Sutton Virtual School PEP document are now live. We have designed the new PEP with input from designated teachers, social workers, foster carers, young people and our CLA nurse team. Please ensure you familiarise yourself with the updates and watch the training video which takes […]

National Advocacy Helpline – new contact details from 1st October 2023

Since 2015, the Department for Education has commissioned a national advocacy helpline to support the rights of children to be heard. Since 2017, this helpline has been delivered through Coram Voice’s ‘Always Heard’ service. We are writing to inform you that from 1st October, the national advocacy helpline service will be provided by the National […]

Smart Targets

Every PEP must contain three SMART targets that are reviewed at the next PEP. There should always be a SMART target for English / literacy, maths and then another area eg attendance, homework, another subject. Where a child is in KS1 or KS2 there must be a writing SMART target as we know that statistically […]

Social Worker Training

Sutton Virtual School are pleased to launch our CPD programme for 2023-24 with the golden thread theme of ‘Change Makers’. Please see the Social Worker CPD Programme for the individual training session dates, designed to provide ongoing support to SW’s. The programme outline on the flyer contains links to sign up to the virtual Teams […]

Our Traded Offer

Cognus has a range of education specialists – teachers, psychologists and other practitioners – with an extensive knowledge and experience of all aspects of education. Our team of over 200 employees and associates can bring a wealth of experience to support professionals in schools and settings in and out of Sutton. We take continuous professional development seriously – our skills are what we do – and our colleagues in […]

Attendance

If a young person has low attendance, it is worthwhile taking some time to work through the EBSA guidance for schools (updated March 2023) There are action planning templates, audits and flow diagrams that can all help identify the issue for the young person and move towards a solution. There are further information on attendance […]

Improving outcomes for school-aged children

Information about EEF research-based interventions and more coming soon!

Other Information and Guidance

Browse here for Government guidance relating to the children we support. Help at Hand service run by The Children’s Commissioner Promoting the education of children with a social worker (publishing.service.gov.uk) National Advocacy Helpline More coming soon!

School moves, transition and Admissions

Children who are looked-after are given first priority for school places and schools are expected to admit them without reference to the oversubscription criteria and without delay. Every Sutton looked-after child has a Virtual School case manager who can assist with school admissions and support their transition. Here is some additional guidance: School admissions information […]