Interesting Times!

Thursday, 11 June 2009

I spent a couple of hours this morning with Children's Services Scrutiny Board talking about the year ahead and the challenges and opportunities we all face...

I was there with Cllr Stuart Golton, Cllr Richard Harker and Rosemary Archer, Director of Children's Services. It was again really useful to be able to use the planning for the session to run through the issues we are dealing with and how they connect with our Strategic Plan. My personal review ranged across the following, in no particular order:

Developing Apprenticeships and Diplomas as part of a coherent 14 - 19 offer;
Developing 'Every Child a Reader' and 'Every Child Counts';
Developing PSCE and SRE provision in schools;
Developing 'Sustainable Schools' in Leeds;
Developing the Early Years and Foundation Stage curriculum and it's transition to Key Stage 1;
Developing the Safer Schools programme working with West Yorkshire Police and other partners;
Developing volunteering as part of the National Year of Volunteering 2010;
Further developing a programme of cultural change based on equity, equality and social justice;
Further developing our 'Leeds Healthy Schools' programme;
Further developing the Academies programme here in Leeds;
Further developing 'The Power of Me' programme;
Further developing the schools workforce to implement and deliver new local strategies,
National Strategies programmes and DCSF policy developments;
Further developing the skills agenda and managing the Machinery of Government changes and the disappearance of the Learning and Skills Council;
Further developing Trusts, Federations and partnerships to drive locality approaches to improved outcomes, behavioural provision and 14 - 19 pathways;
Implementing the Government's approach to 21st Century Schools;
Implementing the Leeds Inclusive Learning Strategy;
Introducing the Government's new School Report Card;
Maintaining a relentless and uncompromising focus on outcomes for looked-after children, children on free school meals and other target groups;
Maintaining our focus on excellence, standards and outcomes for all our children and young people;
Managing and responding to the significant increase in the primary population in Leeds;
Managing the impact of budget changes;
Managing the implications of the Rose Review;
Reorganising the behavioural provision in Leeds;
Successfully delivering two more Academies in Leeds;
Tackling obesity through exercise and diet.

Not really a lot to do then!

I would welcome your feedback.. is there anything I have missed?

Chris

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Margaret Lee Runbeck

“Happiness is not in our circumstances but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.”
John B. Sheerin

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William L Shirer

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C.P. Snow

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Charles R. Wiers

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Paul Tournier

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Francis C. Kelley

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Sydney Smith

"It is often just as sacred to laugh as it is to pray"
Charles R. Swindoll

"Things never go so well that one should have no fear; and never so ill that one should have no hope"
Turkish proverb

"Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself"
Chinese proverb

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William Faulkner

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Eric Hoffer

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John Lennon

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Robert F. Kennedy

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Mahatma Gandhi

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Abraham Lincoln

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Martin Luther King Jr.

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Norman Vincent Peale

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Albert Einstein

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Anonymous

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John Quincy Adams

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Ralph Waldo Emerson