I started the day with colleagues from the North West Family of Schools...

It was a small but great group of headteachers who are working hard to build brilliant provision for their children, their families and their communities. We talked about increasing numbers, special needs and behaviour provision, early years, extended services and 'Every Child a Reader'. We also discussed how schools can maintain their focus on standards with the new OFSTED Framework, so many National initiatives, so many pots of money to chase, so many consultants and experts and so much constant change.

We agreed that the key is to maintain a focus on learning and standards and to nurture passion, enthusiasm, determination, persistence and patience while being able to phone a friend when help was needed. We agreed that we all need to think team and work together to share and build brilliant provision consistently across the city. We also talked about the many challenges we all face but what was deeply encouraging was that, alongside their passionate commitment to their children, there was a total focus on ensuring that their children were exposed to rigorous, pacey and brilliant teaching to ensure that as far as possible they all became literate, numerate and had the necessary social and emotional skills to succeed.

It was a brilliant start to the day with some great colleagues and we need to do more of this; to talk more, to share more, to network more and to celebrate more. We talked about the challenges that lie ahead and the need to be more creative and more collaborative and to stop the merry go round of meetings, bureaucracy and things that made no difference to children and families and focus on those we know do.
Chris