I was reading the Times Educational Supplement over the weekend and there was an article on the '24 hour school'...

We need to re-engineer our provision to encourage and support young people. We do need to think differently about how we engage young people in learning; how we develop our young people as passionate and powerful learners; how we get young people to understand that the keys to success are attitude, discipline and hard work.

What works?

• Opening early with breakfast works.
• Coaching and mentoring works.
• Small nurtured groups works.
• Study support works.
• Family support through STEPS works.
• Enterprise works.
• Sport and activity works.
• The arts and creativity works.

What else works?
Chris

I started the day at South Leeds High School...

I had gone to catch up with Colin Bell the school's headteacher. Colin told me about the visit to London for the Local Government Chronical Sustainable Communities Awards Ceremony last week, the real progress the school is making, the results he is expecting this Summer, the achievements the current Year 9 and the feedback the school has received from parents and carers at a recent Year 9 Parents Evening... FANTASTIC!

Whatever anyone says this is a school going places; with strong and highly effective leadership and great kids!
Chris

My Colleague Viv Buckland who leads the Admissions Team here in Leeds sent me this e-mail...

"Hi Chris, just to let you know we have a new statutory duty to send preference data for secondary to the DCSF on March 1st. We have avoided using this data before as it is our worst picture and usually publish, as other Authorities do, data after the appeals and waiting list. Anyway the good news is 86.2% of Leeds parents were given their first preference and 98.2% of Leeds parents were given one of their three preferences. Best wishes.Viv."

Viv and the team have done a brilliant job managing 16000 admissions to primary and secoindary schools for the coming September.
Chris

MORE GOOD NEWS

My colleague Wendy Winterburn sent me this e-mail...

"Dear Colleagues
I am delighted to let you know that under the management of Bridget Mork the Parent Partnership Service achieved Chartermark status yesterday. A brilliant achievement for a small team of dedicated committed colleagues I would say!!
Regards, Wendy"

This is fantastic news about one of our STAR services. Congratulations to everyone involved.
Chris

I met my colleague Anne Lomas, Visually Impaired Team Leader, the other day and Anne told me about Haider, one of her teams many success stories which I wanted to share with you...

"Dear Chris, Following our brief conversation this morning, I am writing to tell you about some amazing work that is going on in the Visually Impaired Team.

Haider is a Y10 student at Ralph Thoresby HS, supported by the VI base staff, and teachers from the VI team. He has never found school easy, and has struggled with aspects of braille and literacy. Unfortunately, he was unable to attend a full 2 days at College from last September, so the VI team have put together a personalised programme, in order to keep him engaged with school, and to promote some of the VI skills that need to be developed. This has taken three routes; Boxing, cycle repair workshops and specialist sports sessions; cycling, cricket.

One of our new teachers, Steve Thompson, who came to us from Royds, had been involved in improving fitness and motivation for sighted students in his former job, through BoxFit sessions. Boxfit is an activity which aims to improve fitness through a variety of boxing skills and promotes a healthier lifestyle and improved self-esteem via the range of activities involved and the social aspect of the sessions. Steve arranged for a coach to come to Thoresby to work with Haider, and then he took up the challenge of weekly coaching. Over a 4 month period, Haider has progressed beyond everyone's expectations. Following a hard session he recounts "My power, speed and balance have improved as well as my confidence": however the benefits and over-arching life skills which Boxfit promotes are also evident, not only to staff who work with Haider at Ralph Thoresby, but also to Haider himself "I like it because it’s taught me about self-control, and if I think something’s hard, then I’ll give it a go now – before I would have just given up". Haider's parents are equally as delighted with the change they have seen in him.

Last Thursday, Steve took Haider to a local gym where he had a training session with a professional boxer, followed by an hour session of boxfit with other sighted students. This gave him the opportunity to socialise with the other boxers and to make contacts and form friendships which may well last for years, and it is this aspect of boxfit which is perhaps the most important to Haider "If you can’t see then it’s unfair that you can’t have a go – I just like having the chance to do the same as everybody else". Simultaneously, the VI team knew that Haider had an interest in bikes, and rode one at home in the street with his friends. Efforts to pursue this via College were unsuccessful, but Eve McLeish, VI teacher at Ralph Thoresby made contact with the Edinburgh Cycle workshop, and persuaded someone to come in and meet Haider, and just have a chat. Before the end of the first session, the bike was stripped down, and it was evident that this was going to be another success. Haider can now strip down and service the brakes on his own bike, and school have found funding for a further 10 sessions. In addition, the person who comes to do the workshops with Haider has persuaded him to visit a residential college for the visually impaired, that runs the only bike course in the country, and he is going to accompany the team on a visit.

Sarah Cross, a PE specialist in the VI team, has been developing and delivering specialist PE sessions for all the visually Impaired young people at Ralph Thoresby, which has included cycling (independently) and cricket. Again, Haider has shone and discovered success and enjoyment. These successes, and many more, are a direct result of the fantastic work that the Secondary team have been doing on personalisation, and the VI curriculum, and our new team plan has more exciting developments. I cannot praise the efforts and commitment of these staff enough, and I invite you to come to Ralph Thoresby to see boxing, and other sports on any Monday or Tuesday mornings. I attach a picture of Haider.

Best wishes. Anne"

It is great to hear stories like this and to see how we can build pathways to excellence for everyone.

Chris

Last week was a funny old week…

I spent most of the week in meetings: meetings with Rosemary Archer and her Children's Services Leadership Team; a meeting with the Education Leeds Board; a meeting with colleagues at the DCSF; a meeting with colleagues from the Hay Group; a meeting with John Battle MP; a meeting with June Turner, headteacher at Beecroft Primary School; a meeting with Councillor Richard Harker; and a meeting with Dirk Gilleard and Ros Vahey before I headed off to Oxford for my son’s graduation ceremony

I did manage one brief school visit. I visited Lawnswood High School. The school had been plagued by false fire alarms and I popped in to see Milan Davidovic who took me on a quick tour of the school and talked to me about this year’s GCSE results and the progress the school is making.

It’s easy for us here at Education Leeds to talk about the challenges, the difficulties we face, the stress and how difficult our jobs are. But we need to always remember that it’s Milan and his colleagues and colleagues in schools across the city who day-in, day-out are really at the front line.
Chris

"There once was a group of climbers who arranged a climbing competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high mountain. A big crowd had gathered around the mountain to see the race and cheer on the contestants...

The race began...Honestly, no-one in crowd really believed that the climbers would reach the top of the mountain. You heard statements such as:

"Oh, WAY too difficult!!"

"They will NEVER make it to the top".

"Not a chance that they will succeed."

"The mountain is too high!"

The climbers began collapsing. One by one, except for those who in a fresh tempo were climbing higher and higher...

The crowd continued to yell

"It is too difficult!!!"

"No one will make it!"

More climbers got tired and gave up...But ONE continued higher and higher and higher. This one wouldn't give up!

At the end, everyone else had given up climbing the mountain. Except for the one who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top!

THEN all of the other climbers naturally wanted to know how this one had managed to do it? They asked how the one who succeeded had found the strength to reach the goal?

It turned out that the winner was deaf."

It's true you see, that with determination, self-belief and hard work you can achieve things that others believe to be impossible... and don't listen to the voices that say it's impossible.

Chris

I've been thinking about the future and what it looks like...

Whatever it is we need to keep it simple, keep it focused and keep it disciplined. It's too simplistic to think that the answer lies in Trusts or Academies or Federations or Specialist Schools... although they are clearly part of the toolkit that will help us deliver brilliant outcomes for all our children and for all our young people.

The trouble with the current approach, where we look to continue to steadily and systemtically improve our outcomes is that it is simply too slow and fails to recognise that we need a significant step-change in outcomes if we are to deliver world class learning for our young people.

To reach the target of 80% of our young people reaching Level 2 qualifications at 16 requires all our schools to achieve between 65% and 95%. Simply outstanding outcomes require us to think differently and use every possible strategy and approach.

However we know we can do it and we know that the keys are:

• distributed leadership;
• clear, shared vision, values and beliefs;
• appropriate strategies and approaches to raise standards;
• high expectations;
• a coaching culture;
  
• strong relationships;
• inspiring teaching;
• individual tracking;
• focused interventions;
• high parental engagement.

What do you think are the keys to your success?
Chris

I started the day with Education Leeds' Leadership Forum at Space@Hillcrest before I went on to Adams Court to spend the day with the Council's Corporate Leadership Team.
Chris

My colleague Debbie Clark sent me this e-mail...

"Hi Chris, The students of the West SILC - Victoria Park site all leapt for Martin House on Friday. It was great fun and we raised about £25 which is great for us. Debbie"

We had a great day leaping for Martin House on Friday and while I am not sure how much we raised I thought these pictures from the West SILC captured the moment brilliantly.

Chris