I have just travelled back from Stratford-upon-Avon. I was chairing a national conference for 'continYou'.

Their 'Schools of the Future: National Conference on Extended Schools and Integrated Services' attracted around 300 colleagues from all over the country for this two day event. What was great was being able to talk to some amazing colleagues, from England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the occasional Scot, about the brilliant work they are doing usually on fixed and short term funding. It is staggering, knowing what we do about the impact of 'out of hours learning', that it is still so marginalised and forgotten when it comes to long term sustainable funding. We all spend so much time chasing pots of money and putting in bids, I often wonder how we continue to make such an incredible difference through these programmes... it is clearly down to these talented and amazing colleagues.

It was a great day with some sonderful people but the real highlight of the day was meeting and being interviewed by Jodie and Sam, two fantastic young people from Ormsby School in Middlesborough. They were there as Radiowaves student reporters making conference podcasts which are available at www.radiowaves.co.uk/continyou. Radiowaves is a wonderful organisation working with us here in Leeds enabling young people to make their own radio programmes. You can find out more at www.radiowaves.co.uk.

'continYou' is a brilliant organisation with a great team producing some amazing resources and projects. If you don't know about 'continYou' you can find out about their work at www.continyou.org.uk
Chris

On Monday afternoon we met with our friends from the DfES to talk about targets and schools that are hard to shift. It was our half-time talk as we run up to this year's results!

What astonishes me every time we do this, is listening to my fantastic colleagues talking about what we are doing with colleagues in schools to make a difference, to transform outcomes and to achieve transformational change and growth.

My colleagues are simply brilliant!
Chris

Sorry, it's been hectic here and I've been away...

On Monday we had the Children Leeds Open Forum at South Leeds Stadium. The accoustics were terrible which didn't help but Cllr Brett and Rosemary Arher talked about the chalenges we all face and the successes we are seeing. I was asked to be part of a small panel talking about leadership and what motivates me...

The answer I gave was my brilliant colleagues and the wonderful young people I have the privilege to serve here in Leeds. I am in awe of the colleagues in schools who do such an incredible job to ensure that our children are happy, healthy, safe and increasingly successful.

So why is the Children Leeds thing so important? I am into jigsaw puzzles and I suppose I recognised very early on that my piece wouldn't make a fundamental difference, after all it's only 15% of the whole thing, unless it was powerfully connected with all the other pieces that shape and condition a child's life and their outcomes... it's back to the waht makes brilliant debate!
It's good to talk but better to listen.
Chris

I have just received this brilliant photograph of the team accepting the Beacon Award last week.

My colleague Chris Bennett sent me a message this week which I wanted to share...

Chris wanted to tell me about Moira Stones, one of our brilliant learning mentors. Moira works at Carr Manor High School and Chris asked her to represent Leeds Learning Mentors at a meeting on behaviour and attendance at 10 Downing Street with the Prime Minister. Moira was not used to travelling alone but, thanks to the STEPS programme, Moira went to the meeting and wowed everyone!

So much so, that Jim Knight, the Minister of State for Schools, has now invited Moira to join a practitioners' group on pupil behaviour and attendance... to quote Jim Knight's letter "it's role would be that of an informal focus group, whgose members would have the opportunity to provide views and feedback direct from the front line, drawing on their personal experiences as individual practioners. I would consult the group, from time to time, on specific issues".

The membership of the group includes six headteachers, with two Dames and a Sir, and Moira!

Our brilliant, talented, gorgeous and wonderful colleagues are simply great!
Chris

My colleague Peter Storrie sent me a message last week about my "Success is NOT plan driven. Success is NEEDS driven" call to arms. Peter says that he agrees with the statement but that both parts are necessary... the second part being by far the most critical, but the first being important to achieve the latter. Peter's legitimate concern is that the message gives permission to those people who aren't plan and performance driven and/or don't want to be. They probably believe that they are needs driven and therefore have been validated to keep on doing what they are doing. Peter argues that he isn't sure that the message helps; it is the right message for the wrong audience... what do you think?
Chris

I was sent a copy of the Beacon Scheme 2006 Assessment Form at the end of last week...

The feedback we received was brilliant... "This is an outstanding Healthy Schools Programme with some aspects that would be of immense value to other authorities." The assessment identified the following aspects as outstanding:

• leadership, vision and strategy;
• community and customer engagement and empowerment;
• partnerships; and
• outcomes.

and the following as excellent with outstanding features:

• equalities and diversity; and
• actions.

The feedback identifies the engagement of young people as a particularly outstanding feature of our work, exemplified by Kat and James who led our presentation in London.

We are as always simply the best!

Chris

I was sent a fantastic DVD by Ann Lomas and my colleagues in the Visually Impaired Team...

It's called 'Children's Voices... are we listening?' and I watched it over the weekend. It is a wonderful contribution to the debate about engaging and listening to young people about their lives, their learning and their schools. The young people featured were hugely impressive... especially the articulate and charismatic young man who was a Sheffield Wednesday supporter.

I hope that colleagues in every school in Leeds will watch and listen to the important messages it contains.
Chris

I received some wonderfully persuasive letters from Year 6 at Grimes Dyke Primary School. sadly their request was something I can't agree to because they wanted me to allow Year 6 and their teachers to take long weekends, which they argued would help them learn!

I explained to them that the Government requires all children between 5 and 16 years of age to attend school for 190 days every year. I suggested that since they actually only spend 15% of their time at school it isn't that much of a problem and that there are some ways they could unwind, relax and enhance their learning:

• 'wake and shake' sessions;
• 'healthy' breaks and lunchtimes;
• breakfast clubs; and
• circle time.

Any other ideas?

Chris

My colleague Steve Smith sent me something to watch...

I have just watched a fantastic talk by Ken Robinson, the creativity guru, which made me laugh and made me realise that we have a lot to do... it was called 'Do schools today kill creativity?' Ken has an amazing talent but then, like me, he believes that we all do! It takes 20 minutes and will change the way you think about creativity and school.

Watch the talk at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4964296663335083307

Chris