At the end of an extraordinary day I attended the fifth Education Leeds Annual Lecture and doesn't seem a year since we were listening to Mick Waters or two years since we had Tim Brighouse or four years since Alan November delivered the first lecture at the Royal Armouries...

We all know that at it's brilliant best provision and services here in Leeds are outstanding; are simply world class and you don't have to believe me simply talk to the constant stream of visitors from DCSF, OFSTED, NCSL, TDA, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Stockholm, Helsinki, Brno who are blown away by our new buildings, our provision, the materials and projects, our schools, our children and young people and our colleagues. And as I looked around the hall yesterday evening I could see the reason why provision in Leeds is so outstanding…

The lecture was an opportunity to refresh and rethink, to renew and re-imagine and to go into 2010 to continue to change the world and release the enormous potential and magic in our teams, our schools, our colleagues, our children and young people, our families and our communities. We need extraordinary colleagues to continue to build brilliant; to bravely and boldly go where we’ve never been and that is why we invited Sir Ken Robinson to give the Education Leeds Annual Lecture.

Sir Ken Robinson is an internationally recognised leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He has worked with governments across the world, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies and some of the worlds leading cultural organisations. In 1998 he led the UK national commission on creativity, education and the economy and published ‘All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education’. He was knighted in 2003 for services to the arts and education. His latest book ‘The Element’ explores natural talent and personal passion, inspiration and achievement.

Thanks to Sir Ken Robinson, thanks to the team at Savilles, thanks to Dee Reid and the rest of my colleagues who made the evening possible and thanks to all of you who came and made it such a great evening.
Keep the faith!
Chris