Holocaust Memorial Day

My colleague Rehana Minhas, Strategic Manager for Equalities with Education Leeds attended the Holocaust Memorial Day event yesterday at Leeds Town Hall. Rehana told me that...

"The event was well attended by families, children and Faith Leaders, the Lord Mayor opened the event and two of our schools played a key part. Children from Adel Primary School gave origami peace doves to participants and asked for the message of peace to be passed on to others, and to post on the Adel Primary School website where the dove had 'travelled'. The school has maintained the work on peace, having produced an anthology of peace poems last year.

Priesthorpe High School's drama students worked with the 'Blah Blah' theatre group and Holocaust survivors to produce a very powerful multi media presentation to help the audience imagine the horrors of the Holocaust. The 'Blah Blah' theatre director said that they felt the experience of working in one school for the production made the experience meaningful for the young people and more learning took place which will be sustained. The young people interviewed some of the Holocaust survivors and used the recordings in the production."

The event explored the theme 'imagine, remember, reflect and react' which helps us all think about what mankind is still capable of and how we must never forget the need to challenge racism, intolerence, indifference and hatred wherever we find it.

Chris

City of Leeds Youth Music Prom - Tuesday 26 February 2008

Frances Berstien also told me about an exciting music event at Leeds Town Hall...

The City of Leeds Youth Music Prom is on Tuesday 26 February 2008 and these fabulous concerts will be showcasing the best of Leeds' young musical talent. There are two concerts - one in the morning, aimed at primary schools, and one in the afternoon, for high schools. The afternoon concert is a performance of Sinfonia Antartica , film music by Vaughan Williams. This concert is an excellent opportunity for students taking or thinking of taking Music GCSE, or doing Media Studies, to hear film music played live. To find out more please contact frances.bernstein@educationleeds.co.uk.
Chris

My colleague Frances Bernstein, Coordinator, Music Centres and CLYM Groups, with Artforms contacted me...

"Hi Chris, Re your blog about the meeting with the Minister of Education from Kwazulu Natal.
You might be interested to know that, following their visit to Durban last year, the Leeds Youth Jazz & Rock Orchestra are raising money to buy instruments for a township arts centre - during their visit they turned up to do a workshop for young people there and found they had virtually no instruments with which to work. Our young musicians have already raised over £1,600, and rising, by performing locally and attracting business sponsors. Anyone wanting to add their support could contact me. Frances"

This is another of those great causes and anyone with spare instruments or spare cash or who simply wants to help should contact Frances at the West Park Centre.
Chris

Another week and only two weeks left to half-term. Another round of meetings was punctuated by a wonderful lunchtime session, visits to two of our fantastic primary schools, a meeting with the Radiowaves team and signing up to the Children's Workforce Development Council's 'The Big Deal'.

Dirk Gilleard and I had a lunch meeting with the Education business partnership team who talked to us about the fantastic work they are doing. This amazing group of talented colleagues are delivering some innovative and creative projects in primary and secondary schools.
I visited two great primary schools; I went to Quarry Mount Primary School to catch up with Jan Warton and her colleagues and to Adel Primary School to spend the afternoon with Stephen Boothroyd and his colleagues.

I met with Tim Riches and Sharon Middleton from Radiowaves. Radiowaves aims to harness young people's natural enthusiasm for creating media to engage them in compelling learning opportunities. Radiowaves uses social networking and web technologies to provide unique and safe platforms to connect and inspire young people. We are looking for ways to work with the Radiowaves team.

Rosemary Archer and I signed up to 'The Big Deal', the Children's Workforce Development Council's Sector Skills Agreement which sets out what we need to do to build a world class workforce to deliver the very best outcomes for children, young people and families. It sets out the skills, knowledge and competencies the children's workforce needs for the future. We are the first authority to sign up to 'The Big Deal'.

I also met with headteacher colleagues last week and they asked me an interesting question which made me think about how we communicate with our schools. The question was "Okay, you’ve made great progress and achieved a lot over the last few years, but how do you know what schools want from Education Leeds in this new world of Extended Services, Trusts and Academies...a world where schools are increasingly autonomous and increasingly taking responsibility and ownership at the local level?"

It's a great question which we need to consider carefully as we develop our new strategic plan and position ourselves for the future.
Chris

This morning I met Mrs Ina Cronje, Minister of Education for Kwazulu Natal, ...

Mrs Cronje is leading a delegation from the Ministry of Education to Leeds. It is a fact finding visit for the delegation to look at school links and our international schools work. They are going on to a conference organised by the Youth Sports Trust. Mrs Cronje put it all in context when she told me that they have 2.65 million children and young people and a workforce of 100000, including 85000 teachers, working across 6000 schools.

The delegation were really interested in funding, vocational provision, and special educational needs and wanted to know more about our work on quality standards, Bluewave SWIFT, Inclusion Chartermark, Stephen Lawrence, Healthy Schools, 'The Power of Me' and Emotional Well-being. Over the next three days they are visiting some of our best 'international schools' who have strong and developing links with South Africa: Gledhow Primary School, St Mary's RC High School, Prince Henry's Grammar School, Bramley Primary School and Garforth Community College.
Chris

“Emotions are contagious... you can spread happiness or sadness, delight or despair, sunshine or darkness.. it's your choice!”

We need to continue to develop emotional intelligence and learn to:

• be self-aware;
• manage our emotions;
• motivate colleagues;
• show empathy and understanding; and
• stay connected!

Chris

Our BRAND is very special. Education Leeds is recognised locally, regionally, nationally and internationally...

Critically this image and the messsages we send by our behaviours has to match and be seen, heard, believed and accepted. How do we want people to see us...

• approachable;
• children-focused;
• Learner focused;
• confident.
• considerate;
• creative;
• dynamic;
• flexible;
• friendly;
• organised;
• professional;
• reliable;
• successful;
• trustworthy;
• visionary.

What would be on your list?
Chris

CONGRATULATIONS TO JOHN SMEATON!

I heard on Friday that our friends at OFSTED had decided that John Smeaton Community College was a good school with outstanding features...

I know that some of us already knew but this is a truly remarkable result taking the school out of an OFSTED category and putting it right up there with other great secondary schools across Leeds. John Daulby, Marilyn Steele and their colleagues have achieved something fantastic and I look forward to reading the report!
Chris

JOIN THE CLUB!

We need bright, talented and creative individuals to help us create a vibrant and exciting learning community. I want us to get involved in an improvement conversation that will reach beyond the virtual and impact on outcomes for children and young people. We all know that the bigger the collective brain we can develop and the greater the variety of ideas, views and information the better. So why not join in?
Chris

I read a fantastic book about the power of the collective, the power of together, the power of team...

'WE ARE SMARTER THAN ME: HOW TO UNLEASH THE POWER OF CROWDS IN YOUR BUSINESS' by Barry Libert and Jon Spector is a great read in a time where social and community netorks are reaching into every aspect of our personal and professional lives. The authors argue convincingly that the smartest leaders are taking social networks and using them to re-engineer their businesses.
Chris