I started the day at Boston Spa School...

I had been invited by Chris Walsh, headteacher at Boston Spa School, who wanted to talk to me about Trust status. I was deeply impressed by Chris' passion and commitment to his young people and how he saw Trust status as a way of helping the school to achieve its goals.
Chris

OUTSTANDING!

My colleague Stuart Myers, headteacher at Whingate Primary School has confirmed the school took part in the World Maths Day Event - which is internet based and they have achieved 1st place in UK and Europe, plus achieving 5th place in the World! Calendar have been into the school today filming and will be broadcasting tonight at 6pm.
Chris

This evening I attended the Long Service Awards with Cllr Andrew Carter and Cllr Richard Harker...

It was a wonderful evening where we celebrated and recognised the contribution made by 65 colleagues who collectively have served the City of Leeds for 1700 years. We were wonderfully entertained by the Leeds Youth Jazz Rock Orchestra made up of talented young musicians from Guiseley, Lawnswood and Ralph Thoresby High Schools.

I hope we will have some pictures to share with you tomorrow.
Chris

Dirk and I had lunch today with colleagues from our Personnel team...

We are priviledged to work with colleagues like these... talented, brilliant, gorgeous and wonderful... colleagues who are doing great work in so many areas; induction, individual and team development, coaching, the single status work and much, much more. Most of the team have been through Investment in Excellence and talked passionately and positively about the culture of Education Leeds and what we have achieved together over the last few years.

We must always remember that these are some of our most important front-line staff and their commitment, energy, enthusiasm and hardwork is what really makes the difference and helps us continue to deliver outstanding services to our schools.
Chris

The Big School Sing Up!

I know how many of you enjoy a singalong...

My colleague Sarah Rutty, headteacher at Bankside Primary School sent me this e-mail.
"Hello Chris, Thought I'd drop you a line to tell you, if you haven't heard already, about the Big School Sing Up, which is a chance for 'Primary School Children to sing live on the radio'. Actually, this is not strictly accurate as, in fact, the children are pre-recorded and will be played, if lucky and good enough, on their local radio station. Bankside Junior Choir, accompanied by the ever talented Mr Copperwheat and Mr Monether, on bass and acoustic guitars respectively, made their recording for Radio Aire this morning - a rock and roll update on the Greensleeves theme, called Henry's Happy Hour, chosen from the Sing Up Songbook. And a great time was had by all. I'll let you know when we hit the airwaves, so you can have a dance-like-Showaddy-waddy moment all of your own, just as I did this morning. The Sing Up vision is to promote opportunities for singing, performance and staff training in our schools. It aims to 'increase understanding of how singing can help in the social, personal and musical development of children.' If you've got a minute, you can find out more about it on www.singup.org.

Have a happy and harmonious day. Are you going to be at the extended schools meeting on Friday, if so, see you then! As ever, Bankside Best Wishes, Sarah"

Singing reaches the parts other things don't and it releases endorphins that simply make you happy and brighter. I hope 'Bankside's Best' make it on to air!
Chris

We seem to spend so much of our time in meetings and I think the real challenge we face after a day together are to answer the following questions...

1. So what is different?
2. So what are we going to do this week that we wouldn’t have done last week?

We talk a lot about radical options and about creative solutions and yet we constantly build the barricades to protect the status quo, protect our bit of estate … keep our sixth form, keep our students with us … convincing ourselves that they can’t travel, that they can’t connect, that they can’t manage on their own.

The real challenge is how do we ensure that we deliver brilliant learning outcomes … a step change on what we do now. And how do we ensure targeted support for those young people who need more pastoral care, more coaching and more support.

Who’s brave enough to develop a more human scale approach? Who’s brave enough to develop coaching strategies? Who’s brave enough to get out of their comfort zone and break the mould? Any offers?

Chris

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