On the 3rd of January - you may have received an email from Richard Hanks , Interim Director of Education, and Gary Davis regarding accessing the Think Family Education App. This will replace the Local Authority's sending of termly vulnerable children's lists for those children who are statutory school age. This iteration is for primary, secondary and specialist settings. Work continues to consider compatibility for other phases.
It provides you and your pastoral care team with routinely updated pupil information relating to a student’s wellbeing, safeguarding and vulnerability for all young people attending your school, including their status in the child protection / safeguarding system, details of lead professionals involvements, services they are open with, police information on domestic incidents, reported missing , entering the criminal justice system. It facilitates multi-agency working by displaying a joined up single view of a student. It also provides advanced information on young people transitioning to the school once they have accepted their place the summer before arriving.
It was created with consultation of school staff in particular Bridge Learning Campus and more latterly the schools in their Trust (Orchard, Filton, Parsons Street), who helped identify key problems with current data sharing practices within educational settings and the data requirements that would be most impactful in supporting their pupils. The feedback we have received has been very positive.
This work has been carried because we successfully bid for Government funding to significantly improve information sharing between the Bristol City Council / police and educational settings. I am pleased that we are now in a position having developed and tested the app for it to go live across all schools in the City. We believe this is a notable and exciting opportunity, entirely focused in helping you to understand the lives of your pupils better and support you in meeting their needs. It is free!
To take the opportunity forward in your school there are some basic steps which we need you to engage in.
- Check with your colleagues that they have not already responded on the settings behalf.
- Download and complete the attached agreement. TFE Service User Charter.docx
- Sign and return the Charter on behalf of the setting and send to TFD-External@bristol.gov.uk
Once you have completed this you will be sent another email asking you to enter the name and email details of the staff who you would wish to have access to the Think Family Education App. They will in turn receive an emails asking them to complete a ten minute online training course explaining how the app works and some basic explanatory information which when completed will authorise their access. Please feel free to include yourselves on that list.
Any further questions of queries about this please direct them to TFD-External@bristol.gov.uk.