Interventions, opportunities and projects

Advice and guidance on interventions, opportunities and projects for virtual school.

Projects

Current projects in Essex

Britannica Digital Learning

Britannica Digital Learning provides reliable, award-winning reference and curriculum solutions to educators and students.​

Every looked-after child and child with a social worker in Essex has access to Britannica's safeguarded and educational search engine.

For more information visit our Britannica School page.

Creative Education

Essex Virtual School has signed up to Creative Education giving free access to hundreds of practical online courses to help with everyday parenting challenges and challenges for school staff including:

  • behaviour
  • mental health
  • special educational needs

Download the Creative Education brochure for more information (Word, 4MB)

To apply email: virtual.school@essex.gov.uk

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

We’re pleased to announce our participation in Dolly Parton's' Imagination Library.

All children in care aged under 5 can now receive the Imagination Library books each month directly to their home address.

For more information download Dolly Parton's Imagination Library document (PDF, 4.352MB)​ or email us at virtual.school@essex.gov.uk 

Funded training

We’re working with the Children's Support Service (CSS) to offer Essex schools-funded training opportunities.

The offer is open to Essex schools that have Essex looked after children, previously looked after children and children with a social worker attending.

The training on offer includes the following:

  • attachment theory into practice
  • coaching pupils
  • co-regulation and self-regulation
  • effective communication
  • identify and respond to behaviour
  • mental health
  • positive behaviour management
  • stress analysis

The training is fully funded so availability is limited. The training can be delivered as an inset/twilight session or as a bite size workshop.

To book download our Essex Virtual Schools request for training form (Word, 96KB).

If you have any questions regarding the project contact one of the following:

Little Bridge

Little Bridge is a free digital English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) resource for beginners, children and family learning.

This ESOL learning project for primary and secondary children and their families is designed to be a fun way to develop basic English and ICT skills via digital learning.

Little Bridge is now available, free of charge, to all refugees and asylum seekers.

The family learning model enables children to learn with their parents and can be used in the following settings:

  • at home
  • in libraries
  • in community centres
  • in ESOL lessons
  • in schools

Some of it runs as an app on smartphones but generally it runs on a multimedia PC with sound and a microphone with more information available on the Little Bridge website.

For more information contact Sarah White at sarah.white@littlebridge.com ​or on 0208 935 5689.

Maths-Whizz

Essex Virtual School is pleased to be working in partnership with Whizz Education.

Maths-Whizz, is an award-winning virtual online tutor proven to build confidence and accelerate progress in maths. It supports children's learning with engaging, interactive maths lessons tailored to their unique learning needs and provides scaffolded support to ensure understanding.

The tutor will also work to fill any knowledge gaps by replaying exercises and refreshing knowledge.

The continuous assessment makes sure children are presented with the right topics at the right time and enables you to easily monitor progress.

Your children will be able to access Maths-Whizz both at home and at school on any device that has an internet connection.

All KS1, KS2 and KS3 Essex looked after children, previously looked after children and children with a social worker can ask for an online Maths-Whizz account.

Designated teachers should contact Whizz Education at angharad.brackstone@whizzeducation.com​

For more information about Maths-Whizz training for DTs and foster carers visit our Maths-Whizz training page.

Mental health and wellbeing workshops

We’re delighted to be working in partnership with Ignition Arts to offer Essex schools with looked-after children to apply for a mental health and wellbeing programme.

Called 'Me Myself and I', Ignition Arts is offering a selection of powerful workshops where students can develop awareness of their own and other's mental health.

The workshops can range from 1, 3 and 6 sessions. For more information about the workshops download the following documents:

  • Mental health and well-being workshops with Ignition Arts (Word, 64KB)
  • Feedback from schools (Word, 24KB)​​

To book, download our Request for Mental Health and Well-being workshops with Ignition Arts booking form (Word, 72KB).

MY class MY world – Exciting active sessions focused on team building

In this technology driven world young people’s ability to work as a group is diminishing, communication and working together can be a challenge. It can be a struggle to balance the larger personalities of the class with the quiet ones. The workshops will offer exciting interactive sessions that will encourage group work, develop oracy, confidence, compromise, and collaboration. 

MY class My world information sheet (Word, 279KB)

This offer is open to all Essex schools that have Essex children in care or children that are known or have been known to social care attending the setting. Bespoke sessions can be provided for specialised settings. These workshops are fully funded therefore, availability is limited. 
If you would like to apply, please return the booking form (Word, 69KB) to the virtual.school@essex.gov.uk. 

Music Services 

Essex Virtual School and Essex Music Services are working together to offer free 15-minute music lessons and a variety of music workshops.

The offer is open to all Essex looked-after children and previously looked-after children attending Essex schools.

For details on applying for the standard discount visit the Essex Music Hub Additional Funding Support for Schools web page.

Details on getting in touch for the top-up funding are here: Essex Music Hub- Funding Available for Music with Looked After Children & Post Looked After Children.

Schools with children with a social worker can now make an application for funded music workshops.

For more information download our Essex Music Service LAC/PLAC offer Summer 2023 to Spring 2024 document (Word, 164KB).​

Early years music opportunity

We are delighted to offer the popular training course, Developing Music in the Early Years. Following its popularity last year, this course aims to give you confidence in delivering music in your Early Years setting and gives you lots of practical ideas to take away.

This free offer is for all settings that have a Looked After Child, a Post-Looked After Child or a child that has had contact with Social Care in their setting. The free offer includes attendance at the one of the three dates on offer, as well as a small music equipment pack for use in your setting. 

Dates available are:

Book a slot now via the Essex Music Service website. 

Post 16 tuition

We’re excited to announce we’ll be working in partnership with TLC Live as a part of our Post 16 strategy to deliver 10 hours of fully-funded tuition to Essex looked-after young people.

Schools and settings can claim 10 hours of online tuition to support each Essex LAC that is attending the setting with an array of subjects.

TLC LIVE promise to deliver easy and accessible online tuition with every lesson taking place in real-time either from a school, college setting or at home.

The tutors (all fully qualified teachers) and students will speak through the virtual classroom where they’ll be working on the needs of each individual student. Whether this be filling in gaps in a student's learning, supporting with topics currently being studied or providing a student with greater confidence in the build-up to exams.

At the end of each lesson, the student is asked to give feedback on content and overall enjoyment. The tutors will also provide feedback and summarise topics covered and a lesson plan for next time which again is accessible via our portal.

Please complete and return the request form attached.

Once we’ve confirmed the young person is a looked-after child, we will pass the request on to TLC so it can contact designated teachers (DTs) to arrange tuition.

As this project is fully funded, funding is limited. Therefore, if at the end of the 10 hours, additional hours are required, schools and settings will have to contact us to request further tuition. We’ll then consider requests depending on available funding, previous engagement and impact.

Schools and settings will be required to provide TLC LIVE with at least 24 hours notice if a tuition session cannot take place.

To request a booking form email virtual.school@essex.gov.uk

Pupil Perceptions survey

We’re funding a Pupil Perceptions survey which is free for all schools and education settings in Essex.

It will provide helpful information on the health of your school and capture the concerns, wellbeing and safeguarding issues of your pupils. The survey will help us look after children in care and support children with a social worker without singling them out.

Participating schools receive in-depth reports about the wellbeing of all pupils and reports on their 'readiness for learning'. This is key after Covid-19. Results are broken down so you can offer targeted support for individuals or groups and identify areas for curriculum changes. This will help you to meet Ofsted standards for safeguarding and personal development.

The survey will provide national data from 500,000 pupil responses so you know how your school compares to the national average.

The survey lets children share how they see their lives at school, at home and in the community and looks at their views of the following:

  • teachers and other adults in school
  • friends
  • family
  • health professionals
  • religious people
  • police
  • other professionals

Your school will also be able to offer a Parent Perceptions survey to gather parents' views on the same issues.

For more information and sample reports visit the Anspear website’s Pupil Perceptions web page.

If you decide to take part, Anspear will walk you through the set-up. It’s all online and requires no software installation with the survey taking between 15 to 25 minutes.

For more information contact Christina Addenbrooke, Lead for Children with a Social Worker and Previously Looked After at christina.addenbrooke@essex.gov.uk

Songwriti​ng for Wellbeing

​Essex Music Services is pleased to announce wellbeing support for Essex looked after children individually or through their school.

We can deliver Songwriting for Wellbeing virtually into your classroom setting via a 30minute live weekly lesson to create an original song as a class. It’s a fantastic way to promote wellbeing, self-care, literacy and creativity.

This is free to access and a great way to keep creativity and music going in your curriculum.

The sessions can be scheduled to fit in with your timetable, delivered on the platform of your school's choice (or Microsoft TEAMS if you do not have one) and be accessible to students learning at home if appropriate.

To apply for the additional funding and workshops fill in our online Virtual School Funding Application 2023 form.

SPEC holiday programme

We’re happy to announce we’re working in partnership with SPEC training schools to provide the opportunity for Essex Schools to apply for before, lunch and after school multi-sports clubs.

There are limited spaces commencing in the spring term with activities including the following:

  • athletics races
  • basketball
  • builders and destroyers
  • Danish long ball
  • dodgeball games - including Star Wars dodgeball
  • football games
  • hockey
  • kwik cricket tennis
  • mini hockey
  • netball
  • rapid fire 
  • eaction net games
  • speed rounders
  • soft archery
  • tchoukball
  • ultimate frisbee

​How the Project works

​Clubs are to be held at the school that applies with the club fully funded by Essex Virtual School.

Schools can apply if they have the following cohorts attending their setting:

  • children in care (CiC)
  • any young people that have had or have a social worker

For more information download our Before, lunch and after school multi-sports club flyer (PDF, 1.53MB).

To apply download and fill in our Before, lunch and after school multisport project booking form (Word, 72KB).

Once completed, return and email to virtual.school@essex.gov.uk