I finished my day at the Civic Hall with Jenny Hill, Adrian Strain and the Lord Mayor celebrating and promoting Breeze...

Jenny is Schools International Coordinator in the International Relations Team at Leeds City Council and she had invited me to a session as part of the relaunch of the highly successful international youth festival to encourage secondary schools to develop their international partnerships as part of their international and global curriculum offer. We want to make this part of the entitlement for all young people here in Leeds.

The session involved a brilliant input by Chris Fletcher and Marie Coleman from Corpus Christi Catholic College and an opportunity to see the new International Leeds Youth Offer DVD.
Chris

I started the day at the third annual Bursars and School Administrators Conference...

This is always a fantastic day for a wonderful team of colleagues brilliantly organised, managed and delivered by Fiona Meeson and her team. It is clearly one of the highlights of the financial year and Fiona and the team have developed such incredible relationships with colleagues in schools.
Chris

My colleague Rachel Saddington, Deputy Headteacher at Rodillian School sent me this e-mail and these great pictures of her new school...

"Hi Chris, Having read your blog last week I have been shamed into forwarding some pictures of the new school. Sorry they have taken a while. Words cannot begin to describe the building - it is truly amazing and is already having an impact on our young people. Coupled with the improvements made last year, we have a real opportunity to make Rodillian an exceptional school. The sky is the limit! Take care. Rachel"

It was fantastic to read the e-mail Rachel sent me. Like Rachel I think the journey we are all on is about building brilliant learning places that achieve outstanding results for young people, their families and communities... and it isn't rocket science and there is no magic ingredient... it's about leadership, creativity, imagination, persistence, determination, blood, sweat and tears. It is great to see Rachel's passion, commitment, energy and hard work starting to deliver this and taking that into her fantastic new building should release the magic and ensure that Rodillian now flies!
Chris

On my way out of the Civic Hall I bumped into some of the Youth Council...

They are a fantastic bunch and we need to work harder with them on some of the big agendas. They thought the new schools were fabulous but recognised that they challenged the way we deliver teaching and learning. Discuss!
Chris

I was at another reception last night where I met the high level delegation from Zhejiang Province in China including the Director General of the provincial education bureau...

You realise the scale at which some people work and how disconnected people must be from the reality of teaching and learning. Zhejiang Province has 9 million children and young people... simply incredible!
Chris

The message I took away from the 'Good to Great' session was about building a world class Leeds...

Our challenge is to help our colleagues, all our colleagues, to reach their potential and be their brilliant best. Building a culture of excellence, not a culture of OK. A culture of brilliant not a culture of it's good enough.

We have had a good year. In fact we have had a great year. Our best ever...
4 star, good APA, good JAR, our best ever GCSE results and AS/A2 results. We have opened brilliant new facilities... a new City Museum, new secondary schools, new leisure facilities. We've won regional, national and international recognition and awards. At it's best Leeds is brilliant: a place full of talent, potential, energy, passion, creativity and imagination. Our simple challenge is to release the potential, to unleash the magic.

So how do we take that talent and wrap around it beautiful systems and an aspirational culture. We need to work hard and to work now to reach out to our young people, their parents and carers, our communities and faith groups. To reach out to our marginalised, hard to reach and forgotten citizens. We can't do this alone but together we can change lives for the better, to close the gap and take Leeds up a league to deliver world class outcomes for those we serve.

Let's get started tomorrow.
Chris

I went on to this year's 'Good to Great' session at the Town Hall...

I had been asked to introduce the afternoon session where Chris Moon had been invited to speak. Chris Moon survived kidnap, threatened execution, being blown up, losing his limbs and most of his blood. He ran a marathon less than a year after leaving hospital, tested artificial limbs to new limits, run most of the world's toughest ultra distance races, climbed mountains, crossed countries on foot, written books and most importantly used his experience to understand and illustrate the process of achievement.

Chris Moon is an amazing human being and he spoke with humour and passion and inspired everyone at the Town Hall.

Chris

I started the day early at John Smeaton Community College with the east area secondary headteachers...

We were discussing the challenges we currently face with secondary provision in East Leeds:

• The National Challenge;
• The Post 14 Challenge;
• The Leadership and Governance Challenge;
• The BSF Challenge.

I look forward to spending more time with this talented group as we wrestle with these challenges and find some creative solutions.
Chris

Last week was another fantastic week with a Building Schools for the Future event at the Carriageworks, visits to Allerton High School and Pudsey Grangefield High School, two of the new BSF schools, by Rosie Winterton MP, Minister for Yorkshire and the week ended with the opening of the brilliant new City Museum in Millenium Square.

I also attended an induction session at the Derek Fatchett CLC and a celebration event for the INVEST programme which Jane Haswell runs supported by colleagues from the Families and Schools Together team. Then over the weekend I went to London to see the latest Matthew Bourne ballet at Sadler's Wells.

What I realise every time I get really involved in the arts is that talented people don't do a good job or a great job because they are being monitored or because someone is watching them. They do a brilliant job because that is what they are ... brilliant and they simply love what they do. After last week this is obviously also true about the colleagues who delivered the new BSF schools and the new City Museum and the colleagues in the FAST team.

It is important to always remember that we have a choice and that we choose to work in the team here at Education Leeds. We choose to be here and being here gives us a chance to share our talents, our abilities, our passion and our energy... so whatever you do be your brilliant best and work hard to release the magic!
Chris

Over the weekend I went to see Matthew Bourne's new ballet Dorian Gray at Sadler's Wells...

The ballet was a more controversial production that the other Bourne works that I have seen and takes the Oscar Wilde classic into a 21st Century setting. Wlide's dark, obsessive and sinister story of a beautiful and charismatic hero who is also a sadistic killer is brought up to date by focussing on our obsession with youth and the cult of celebrity.

What you always get in a Matthew Bourne ballet was captured wonderfully by the cast of eleven great dancers supported by a talented team of musicians who performed the original score by Terry Davies... power, strength, energy, discipline and the result was fantastic.
Chris