Later this afternoon I met Colin Bell, the Principal at the South Leeds Academy...

Colin wanted to talk about the relationship Academies here in Leeds have with Education Leeds and we agreed that as we build the new children's services arrangements and the new Academies programme develops this will become an even more important relationship. I am particularly grateful to Colin and his colleagues at the South Leeds Academy who have achieved something quite remarkable over the last four years. Colin's leadership, in particular, has transformed provision as we moved from two failing schools with massive problems of underachievement, low expectations and disaffection to a position where we have a wonderful newly built learning environment where young people are more positive and optimistic and we are close to achieving the Government's magic 30% achieving 5A*-C grades at GCSE including English and mathematics and around 70% achieving 5A*-C grades at GCSE or the equivalent.

The challenge now is to continue to build on this real success story; to build on what Colin and his team have achieved to create the foundations for a really outstanding school to serve this complex community... whatever it takes!
Chris