What is Nottingham City Virtual School? (& FAQs)

Nottingham City Virtual School is a statutory service that supports and monitors the education of children in care and previously looked after children. Our mission is to champion the educational needs of these children, helping them to achieve the best possible outcomes.

The Virtual School provides advice and support to professionals working with Nottingham City children in care and children who reside in the Nottingham local authority area who have previously been looked after or have a social worker. We work closely with teachers, school governors, social workers, independent reviewing officers (IROs), parents and carers.

The service monitors the educational provision, attendance, progress and attainment for all Nottingham City looked after children, irrespective of where they are placed. The Virtual School aims to: promote achievement, raise attainment and ensure equality of opportunity to enhance the life chances of all looked-after children. We play a strategic role in ensuring the corporate parenting responsibilities of the local authority are met, with regard to the education of children in care.

We are continually working to improve and develop our effectiveness and offer of support.

We have a team of Education Support Officers (ESOs), Administrators and a Data manger who work under our Virtual School Head and Interim Service Manager.

A few of the ways we meet our statutory duties are: 

• Monitoring and tracking educational outcomes and intervening where support is required. 
• Attending and contributing to Personal Education Plan (PEP) meetings to ensure plans are aspirational and will support children to progress and achieve. 
• Ensuring PEPs are of sufficient quality through completing short form and deep dive quality assurance. 
• Identifying interventions and provision necessary and suitable to support children to learn, progress and achieve. 
• Monitoring school transitions to ensure children have a suitable school place and support they need to transition successfully. 
• Providing advice, training and support to social care, education staff and carers in respect to promoting the educational achievement of children in care. 
• Allocating Pupil Premium Plus Grant to schools to support educational progress and achievement. the education of children in care and ensuring the Virtual School Head 

Supporting our Primary and Secondary ESOs, we are also have ESOs specialising in the following areas:

• Post-16
• Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
• Previously-Looked-After and Kinship
• Early Years

These colleagues have a wealth of experience working across education and social care settings and can offer support, guidance and advice in respect to their specialisms. 

The Virtual School offers a comprehensive training offer including online e-learning, resources, in-person and virtual training and bespoke training on request. 

We also host and collaborate to offer DT network meetings, conferences, regular support groups for carers and families and offer enrichment opportunities for children and young people throughout the year. 

The name of the allocated Education Support Officer for a child looked after is stated on the main page of the child’s ePEP record below the Nottingham City logo next to ‘Virtual School Contact’.

Nottingham HOPE Academy is a specialist educational provision for asylum seeker and refugee young people, aged 15-19 years who are new to English. 

If a Nottingham City child looked after requires a laptop to support their education, the child’s social worker should contact the child’s allocated Virtual School Education Support Officer to discuss the request for a laptop for the child.

Access for social care staff An email should be sent to the Virtual School inbox thevirtualschool@nottinghamcity.gov.uk – on the email subject heading, please state ‘Encrypt: access to ePEP portal/access to child’s ePEP’.

Please provide

• the child’s full name
• date of birth or their Liquid logic ID number
• details of your role
• your contact details – phone number, email address
• the name of your social care team

Access for Designated Teachers for Children Looked After

Please provide

• the child’s initials
• date of birth
• details of your role
• your contact details – phone number, email address
• school’s name and address

For Social Workers: Temporary access for other social care staff (e.g. Family Support Workers) can only be given by The Virtual School. Please email the Virtual School to request temporary access: thevirtualschool@nottinghamcity.gov.uk 

Temporary access will only be granted until 31 August of that year. If further access is needed beyond that date, email confirmation is required by the Virtual School.  For Designated Teachers: Designated Teachers can delegate temporary access to another member of staff in school by clicking on EPEP then click on DT Delegation within your Welfare Call account.

The Virtual School offer training on Electronic PEPs (ePEPs) for early years, statutory school age and post 16 children and young people. This training includes a live demonstration and detailed information on how to use the ePEP system. More information on ePEP training could be found here: Virtual School Training Programme

Please remember to complete the training booking form which can be found underneath details of the ePEP training section on our website.

The completion of a PEP is the joint responsibility of the child’s education setting (e.g. school or college) and the child’s social worker. Therefore, the PEP can be chaired by either the education setting or by the child’s social worker or family support worker.