Last week was a great week...

Viv Buckland and her colleagues did a brilliant job managing 16000 admissions to schools and are continuing to do a brilliant job dealing with the ensuing enquiries from parents and carers. Dirk and I had lunch with colleagues from the personnel team. It was a great opportunity to listen and learn and the session confirmed once again what a talented bunch they are.

I also visited Seacroft Grange Primary School to see Terry Ayres, Chair of Governors and headteacher, Mike O’Grady. It’s a wonderful little school where Mike and his colleagues are releasing a really special magic.

On Friday I spent the day with around 300 colleagues at the Extended Services Conference. We listened to Lord Andrew Mawson, Christine Gilbert HMCI and Maggie Farrah from NCSL. It was a great day thanks to Mark Hopkins, Sally Bavage and colleagues.

The highlight of the week was the Long Service Awards where we celebrated the contribution that 66 of our colleagues from Education Leeds and schools have made to education in the city. It was a great evening thanks to Stephanie, Danielle, Iram, Helen, Claire and Paul, and it was wonderful to be able to thank so many wonderful colleagues for a life of service to children and young people here in Leeds.
Chris

Where are the photos?

I am still waiting for colleagues to share the photos from last weeks fantastic Long Service Awards...

I know that they are out there somewhere!
Chris

CONGRATULATIONS!

These were the schools who were successful in this years Stan Kenyon Annual School Challenge "On the Move"...

• Raynville Primary School;
• Pudsey Primrose Hill Primary School;
• East SILC John Jamieson;
• Park Spring Primary School;
• Greenside Primary School;
• St Benedict's Catholic Primary School;
• Ashfield Primary School;
• Allerton High School.

Next year's challenge is "Too Hot too Handle" which asks schools to design a scheme for their school or home which helps to reduce the adverse effects of climate change. This challenge fits brilliantly with the Leeds Youth Council's priorities. If you are interested and want to get an information pack please contact Linda Banks at linda.banks@leeds.gov.uk.

Chris

I met three fantastic young people today...

The team from Primrose TV were at the Extended Services Conference interviewing Lord Mawson, Christine Gilbert HMCI and others and they were fantastic! This is the picture they took of Christine Gilbert HMCI and I.

Chris

I am doing a brief input after lunch and the key messages are...

Building Brilliant…
…releasing the potential of your team!
our mission… our ambition

“We want to be world class…
… whatever it takes!”

The Six Keys to BRILLIANT…
Performance!
Leadership!
Teamwork!
Attitude!
Culture!
Ownership & Engagement!

Success is NOT plan driven, it is NOT the product of strategic thinking or planning or the product of focus groups.
Success is NEEDS driven, it is messy, evolutionary, trivial, experimental and the product of trial and error.

Have you
changed the world
today?

And finally...
...those who say
"it cannot be done"…
…should not interrupt
the person doing it.
Chinese Proverb

Chris

No Guns, No Knives, No Nonsense!

I bumped into Mark Cooper the Weapons Awareness Project Co-Ordinator at the Royal Armouries...

Mark and his colleagues are doing brilliant work on weapons awareness, tackling knife crime and building resilience and the power of young people to make positive lifestyle choices. If you want to contact Mark his e-mail address is marc.cooper@armouries.org.uk.

Chris

Christine Gilbert HMCI

We are now listening to Christine Gilbert HMCI who has been really complimentary about our mission and purpose: to build a world class education service to serve the City of Leeds...

Christine had looked at what we are doing and she highlighted the provision in the early years and our progress in terms of improving schools and improving GCSE outcomes. She also recognised the challenges we face and the importance of looking beyond the school to extended services, community engagement and the family.
Chris

What is a Social Entrepreneur?

"They were a ragtag group of misfits and mavericks, heroic figures, seemingly single-handedly bringing jobs, healthcare and education to deprived communities. They were visionary and relentlessly optimistic, but practical and pragmatic. They self-consciously applied business methods to social problems, but weren't motivated by profit. This iconoclastic, inspirational, sometimes frustrating and often self-promoting group did not even have a name for themselves."
Charles Leadbeater

I looked it up and discovered that social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change. Rather than leaving it to the government or business, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading u to take new leaps.

Social entrepreneurs seem to be possessed by their ideas, committing their lives to changing the direction of their field. They are both visionaries and ultimate realists, concerned with the practical implementation of their vision above all else.

Each social entrepreneur presents ideas that are user-friendly, understandable, ethical, and engage widespread support in order to maximize the number of local people that will stand up, seize their idea, and implement with it. In other words, every leading social entrepreneur is a mass recruiter of local changemakers—a role model proving that citizens who channel their passion into action can do almost anything.

I think on that basis we are all social entrepreneurs!

Chris

I am sitting here at Saviles Hall at the Royal Armouries at our Extended Services Conference...

It's a wonderful collection of colleagues listening to an inspirational input from Lord Andrew Mawson one of the leading social entrepreneurs in Britain. He has created a huge range of projects including the Bromley-by-Bow Centre in East London. I think we should all read his book "The Social Entrepreneur - making communities work".
Chris

I moved on to Seacroft Grange Primary School...

I had been asked to visit the school by Terry Ayres, Chair of Governors, who wanted to talk to me about cutting down the paper associated with governing body meetings. I also had an opportunity to walk around the school with Mike O'Grady to meet some of the learning team and some of the children.

This is a great school doing some brilliant work and releasing a very special kind of magic!
Chris