As we move closer towards the October half term, this week’s Whistle continues to focus on supporting the health and wellbeing of staff across the Trust.  The articles below provide some helpful and useful resources for reference. Most importantly, we  encourage all colleagues to rest and recuperate while children are off-site. We recognise how incredibly hard all of you have been working throughout this challenging time and therefore really do want to promote the need for staff to ‘down tools’ during half term.  Linking to the subject of Covid-19, I am pleased to report that we continue to have minimal positive cases within WeST schools. Despite the Government’s need to impose greater restrictions nationally, the number of children who have needed to self-isolate across our 22 schools has been kept to an absolute minimum and is testament to our robust approach taken in dealing with the pandemic. [RL1] 

Turning to our Strategic Plan 2020-25, I would like to highlight the final strand this week “Standards & Outcomes”. In the short term a key deliverable for this thread includes reducing student mobility where outcomes include reducing exclusions and promoting attendance. Richard Woodland will be a key contributor to our work in this area through the lens of inclusion and disadvantage. [RL1

As we develop the action plans that underpin each of the strands we have highlighted over recent weeks, we will continue to share headline activities with you and report on progress over coming months.

Take care & best wishes,

Rob Haring – CEO

Have Your Say….

A whole staff survey on shaping next steps is now available.

Your views matter to us and we want your help to build improvements to our working environment as we move through the remainder of the autumn and into the spring term.  Therefore WeST has developed a specific staff survey for all colleagues to gather feedback and input. The survey opens 14th October and will be available until Friday 23rd October.

The short survey has 12 questions to share your perspective. You can access this link on any internet enabled device or use the QR code below. Results will be anonymous and reviewed centrally by the Executive Team. A summary of the results will be published in future editions of the Wednesday Whistle.

To complete the short survey please click here

Alternatively, you can scan the QR code below:

Thank you!