The Small Print

New and updated guidance

We continue to write new guidance and will be publishing a new suite of guidance for gardening and grounds works, following a conversation with a school in Guernsey who do a lot of work outdoors. Take a look at the ‘What’s New’ links on the website.

We published our guide on dealing with Coeliac disease last term, which has been well received in schools, and we continue to update out advice on food ingredients.

There has been a recent consultation on how to manage allergens in schools and we will update our advice accordingly, when the new regulations come into effect, which could be later this year. Until the regulations are finalised, our existing guidance is still appropriate.

To keep abreast of updates to our publications, use the ‘What’s New’ links on the site. We also keep an up to date index of the MRATs (MRAT index) which identifies which MRATs have been updated and when, with a note explaining why the changes were made.

Heads of Department

We still get lots of helplines about what training staff will require, with this term being an important term for new appointments for September starts, it may be useful for Heads of D&T and A+D to refresh their information on training and induction of new staff. We have some useful guides:

GL494 Training for D T staff

GL392 Induction for teachers of DT food and art

GL388 Training Plan

We also recommend that HoDs look at putting their staff through the online training that is free to members, this takes approximately 60 minutes to work through the 5 short videos and the activities and can be used as the basis of a departmental meeting or INSET activity. If, after working through this, you, or your colleagues, still have questions, you can sign up for the online follow-up session where we pose some new questions and address any concerns you have, this costs £95 per person and runs once a term.