I started the day with a series of briefings for the politicians...

I briefed Cllr Wakefield, Cllr Harker and Cllr Blackburn who all asked really challenging questions and showed great interest in what we are doing, the barriers we are facing and the impact and outcomes we are achieving.
Chris

Work can be great... stimulating, engaging, innovative, energising, collaborative and passionate. It can also be dreary, dull, predictable, political, competitive and draining. It's up to you...
Personally I choose great!
Chris

The key to brilliant schools, brilliant teams and brilliant organisations is to engage, switch on and keep switched on the colleagues who work with us...

Everyone tells me that it simply doesn't work like that but here is a four week plan to build brilliant.
WEEK ONE
Be unfailingly positive and upbeat, smile a lot and say something positive and meaningful to anyone and everyone who makes a difference or helps;
WEEK TWO
Show a genuine interest, actively engage colleagues and listen carefully to what they say;
WEEK THREE
Make colleagues feel valued, single out anyone who has gone the extra mile and show your appreciation with letters, chocolates or flowers.
WEEK FOUR
Practice, practice, practice and enjoy!

Try it and see.
Chris

CONGRATULATIONS

I have been looking at the DCSF web-site and it makes interesting reading. I was particularly interested in the two tables they have produced of 'Top Primary Schools'...

The Top 100 primary schools nationally based on KS1 - KS2 contextual value added includes

• St Francis of Assisi Catholic Primary School.

The Top 100 primary schools nationally based on sustained improvement at Level 4+ from 2004 - 2007 includes

• Little London Community Primary School; and
• Holy Rosary and St Anne's Catholic Primary School.

Congratulations to the colleagues whose hard work, in these three schools, has been so publicly recognised.
Chris

Dirk Gilleard and I went on to attend a team lunch with the Education Leeds Education Business Partnership team...

This fantastic team is supported by the West Leeds Learning and Skills Council and works to create links between schools and businesses through an amazing portfolio of enterprise, professional development and work experience programmes. The team did a presentation for Dirk and I to outline the range and quality of their work from 'Cashpoints' to 'Boom Bizz', from the 'IKEA Way' to 'ADOPO', from 'Bee Crafty' to the 'Stocks and Shares Challenge'!

Enterprise is about problem-solving, decision making, leadership and risk management. It's about creating a can-do culture where young people tackle real problems, take responsibility for their decisions and evaluate the impact of those decisions... and the work here in Leeds is ground breaking and brilliant!

This creative and brilliant team's work is right at the heart of a new approach to the curriculum which engages and challenges young people around a key set of core skills vital for the world of work and for life in general. If you want to know more about their work contact Mike Cooper or Christine Marsden at Leeds West City Learning Centre.
Chris

Be careful it's Blue Monday...

Research suggests it is the most depressing day of the year! Interestingly my journey in today would support that theory... it took me 75 minutes and the traffic simply crawled from the junction of the A1 with the A64... I know it's time to think about the issues and challenges we face and focus on impact and outcomes but it's dark and miserable, the traffic is horrendous, people drive so badly and get so cross with each other... it's simply the most depressing start to the week!

However, once here, my first meeting of the day, with Leadership Team, was a breath of fresh air; positive, powerful, reflective and focused. It energised me for the week.
Chris

I went to see Opera North perform Madam Butterfly on Friday night and it was brilliant again. If you get a chance to see it, don't miss it!
Chris

What are the charactersistics of a learning organisation...

A Learning Organisation...

• Values and clebrates diversity;
• Transforms ideas into action;
• An appetite for risk;
• Ongoing commitment to learning;
• Mission-driven and alignment with vision;
• Values relationships;
• Fosters shared decision-making;
• Encourages curiosity;
• Embraces change;
• Learns from successes;
• Learns from negative experiences;
• Makes the flow of information transparent;
• Shares widely and generously.

Are you working in a learning organisation?

Chris

Just don't tell me that their are groups of young people who can't learn and who can't be successful because I don't believe it...

Recent brain research shows that the ability to learn is universal and is similar in people from various cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. However, what is learned is the distinguishing feature of success in any school. The failure of any student to achieve is a product of there being a mismatch between what is being taught and what is being learned rather than there being some students who “cannot learn.”

We know that the keys to learning are the student’s ability to learn, the way in which the classroom is organized and managed and the relationships between student, teacher and parent.Therefore there are three major issues we need to address...

• putting in place an appropriate, stimulating and challenging curriculum,
• engaging every student in the curriculum as without engagement, little is learned,
• enabling the student to build a positive relationship to learning, and the people who are
  involved in their learning, so that they can become a lifelong learner.

I believe that building a positive relationship to learning is the key to unlocking the potential of all our learners. The problem is that under the current system of accountability, with a highly structured curriculum based on specific standards and the continuous testing of student knowledge, building a positive relationship to learning is the thing we spend the least time on.

Chris

“leadership is a key, vision is a driver, relationships are the glue that binds teams of
people together and learning enables them to work innovatively and interdependently.”
Steve Marshall

I have been reading the ''International Handbook of School Effectiveness and Improvement'. The last chapter on 'School Effectiveness and Improvement in the Twenty-first Century: Reframing for the Future' captures the challenges we face and the choices we need to make to ensure that every young person becomes a passionate and committed learner.It identifies the following characteristics in order of their importance to student learning:
(1) Classroom management
(2) Metacognitive processes
(3) Cognitive processes
(4) Home environment/parental support
(5) Student/teacher interactions
(6) Social/behavioural attributes
(7) Motivational/affective attributes
(8) Peer group
(9) Quantity of instruction
(10) School culture
(11) Classroom climate
(12) Classroom instruction
(13) Curriculum design
(14) Academic interactions
(15) Classroom assessment
(16) Community influences
(17) Psychomotor skills
(18) Teacher/administrator decision making
(19) Parent involvement policy
(20) Classroom implementation and support
(21) Student demographics
(22) Out of class time
(23) Program demographics
(24) School demographics
(25) Authority policies
(26) School policies
(27) Authority demographics

If we look at the top five elements that contribute to student learning, it becomes
obvious that it is what happens in the classroom and the home that is critical to an individual
student reaching their potential. What happens at the school, authority or national
level has minimal impact.
Chris