I started the day at Middleton Primary School...

I arrived for breakfast and it was buzzing with a military operation providing breakfast for hordes of children and parents and carers. The coffee and toasted teacake was fantastic and it is wonderful to see the impact this incredible pre-school breakfast club is having.



I had been invited by Sam Williams, the headteacher, to visit the Cooking Bus which is visiting Middleton Primary School this week. The school has been selected as one of the 180 flagship schools to become a national leader for quality school food and food education. The schools were chosen by the Food for Life Partnership (FFLP) and the initiative is funded by the Big Lottery Well-being Programme. The school is aiming to achieve FFLP Gold Mark.

I was invited to a cooking session where we cooked Butternut Basil Bread and Blue Cheese and Pear Salad... recipes available on request! To find out more about this brilliant programme you can visit http://www.focusonfood.org/home.html. Why not request a cooking bus visit to your place.
Chris

This evening I attended the Playing for Success Celebration Evening at Leeds United Learning Zone...

The evening celebrated a twelve week programme involving young people from three high schools; Cockburn Community College, Farnley Park High School and South Leeds High School, three primary schools; Castleton Primary School, Cottingley Primary School, Middleton Primary School and the South SILC. It was a brilliant evening and the Lorimer Suite was packed with young people and their parents, carers and teachers.
Chris

My colleague Ken Campbell our Stepping Stones Manager gave me a copy of his new publication ' Reaching Higher for Young People Looked After', The Stepping Stones Fellowship...

The publication makes it clear that "good parents encourage their children to succeed, support their aspirations and help them to plan for their futures. A local authority must do likewise for children and young people in its care."

The Stepping Stones Fellowship brings together a range of partners with the aims of awakening and raising aspirations, raising achievement, widening participation and creating opportunities for the future. The support of the University of Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan University is critical to the success of the Fellowship which is also supported by Stepping Stones, The Frank Buttle Trust, Leeds City Council, Aimhigher, Leeds Mentoring and our FAST team.

Ken and his colleagues are making sure that together these powerful partnerships will change and secure the life chances for all our children and young people looked after by the Council.
Chris

I popped in to Elmete first thing this morning and once again realised what a fantastic group of colleagues are based there and that I don't get there often enough...

One of my New Year resolutions will have to be about getting to Blenheim, Elmete and West Park more often so I can tell colleagues what a great job they are doing, take the temperature and pick things up. I also need to attend more team meetings to listen to colleagues and talk about their challenges and the opportunities to continue to build brilliant.
Chris

My colleague David Price, Project Leader, Learning Futures Initiative at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation sent me this...

"Dear Colleague, The project team for Learning Futures would like to draw your attention to the call for applications to become a Learn Futures Field Trial Site. The project is aimed at secondary schools who will work together in clusters to develop next practice pedagogy, based upon the principles originally outlined in the 'Learning Futures: Next Practice in Teaching and Learning which is available for download from http://www.phf.org.uk/landing.asp?id=368.
Since the initial scoping phase we've been heartened by the level of interest shown in the project, across the education community in this country, and even internationally. It encourages us to think that the timing and ambition of the project is right.
The PHF Trustees, and our partners at the Innovation Unit, are committed to breaking new ground through Learning Futures, and if you'd like to join us we look forward to receiving your application.
Finally, allow me to draw your attention to two important diary dates:
• Four regional seminars will be held to support those considering applying, from Jan 22nd – Jan 28th;
• The deadline for this single-stage application process is March 2nd 2009
If you have any queries, please contact info@learningfutures.org, or call 0207 227 3500
Best wishes,David Price, OBE."

David led the successful 'Musical Futures' initiative that many Leeds schools were involved with and I hope that colleagues will jump at the chance to be inviolved with Learning Futures.
Chris

I received some more great news after our portfolio of evidence for Level 4 of the Equality Standard was re-assessed...

"It is evident that significant progress has been made and Level 4 of the Equality Standard has been achieved by Education Leeds. There are a number of areas of strength in all areas of the portfolio – the commentary and evidence provided is very good."

CONGRATULATIONS to everyone for another brilliant achievement.
What a TEAM!
Chris

This afternoon I visited Crossley Street Primary School in Wetherby...

I had been invited by Sandra Clynes, headteacher, at this great little school to see their new classrooms. I was visiting on their Open Day which was also their Christmas Fair and when I arrived everyone was busily setting up for the Christmas Fair at the end of the school day.

Sandra Showed me around and took me to see the four new classrooms which are fantastic; large, bright, colourful and full of magic! It is a real transformation and the only thing left now is to get rid of those terrible temporary classrooms and landscape the grounds. We have transformed Crossley Street since I started here in Leeds and it is simply remarkable what has been achieved. It goes to prove what you can do with persistence, determination and hard work.
Chris

I started the day at Weetwood Hall with Leadership Forum...

We were there to look at the opportunities and the challenges we face and how we further develop our services and support for schools, children and young people, families and communities. It was an opportunity to look at the unique, innovative, creative and very special culture we have built, the way we thread that culture through the beautiful systems that underpin our practice and how we coach and lead as learners.

It is great to spend some time with Leadership Forum and to remember what we have achieved in the last year. Education Leeds is a unique and special organisation with strong and highly effective leadership, an inclusive and enabling ‘can do’ culture and a passion, energy, enthusiasm and commitment to serve the children, young people and families here in Leeds. The company has had another great year and consistently delivered outstanding services to schools, Children’s Services and the Council.

As well as delivering the last two PFI buildings we have seen the opening of the first three new BSF buildings at Allerton High School, Pudsey Grangefield School and Rodillian School, with Allerton High School being officially opened by the Prime Minister. We have also had notification from the DCSF that our Primary Capital Programme proposals have been agreed with some minor amendments which means that we can start work on an ambitious programme of work that will deliver another £100 million capital investment across the city. Our continuing success has been recognised through our nomination for the Carl Bertlesmann Prize, the extension of our Beacon Status for Healthy Schools, the Leeds Transformational Project celebrating the bi-centenary of the abolition of the slave trade which secured £450,000 of Lottery funding, the success of our ‘Find Your Talent’ bid which has secured around £2.5 million of Lottery funding.

We launched our Emotional Health and Well Being Toolkit and our Investors in Pupils programme has moved to a national roll out. We are continuing to develop our Sustainable Schools programme and held our first Leeds Schools Green Day. We achieved and exceeded our 2007-08 PE and School Sport targets, launched our “Happy Healthy Active Lunchtimes” initiative, launched our Time to Play toolkit and established ‘Spirit Alive’ as our response to the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

We were the first authority in the Region to gain re-accreditation of our Inclusion Chartermark and our Visually Impaired Service achieved Quality Mark as well as successfully tendering and winning the contract to develop a visually impaired service for British Services Abroad. We also developed, organised and successfully delivered the first national Gypsy, Roma and Travellers History month and Poster Competition and more recently we won two of the national BSF Excellence Awards for the ‘BEST LEP’ and ‘Innovation in ICT’.

The STEPS programme continues to develop with more and more targeted parents and carers benefiting from the programme and 39 clusters of schools and partners are working towards delivering the core offer of extended services; which has been commended by the DCSF for good progress. We have received recognition from House of Lords for our work with International New Arrivals as well as recognition from OFSTED through one of their thematic survey which identified good practice on Social Responsibility and Community Cohesion. Many more of our services have achieved Chartermark and the company was the first to achieve the Cabinet Office’s Customer Service Excellence standard. We have achieved our best ever GCSE results; fantastic results at 5 A*-C, 5 A*-C including English and mathematics, 5 A*-G and 1A*-G and our feedback from the Audit Commission survey which gave us the best satisfaction rating we have ever had from our schools.

As I said... never forget that you are simply brilliant!
Chris

I received these great photos of Farsley Farfield Primary School in the snow yesterday....

Isn't it wonderful to see to see the joy on these childrens faces and to remember that a snowy day can be a brilliant way to learn rather than an excuse to stay in bed .

Any more photos gratefully recieved.

Chris

I met with the PE and School Sport Co-ordinators from our Specialist Sports Colleges yesterday...

Charlie Pyatt, Brychan Jones, Trudi Hannaford and Richard Chattoe managed to find the time to come with my colleague Helen Plimmer, our Adviser for PE, to talk about their successes to date and how we can continue to drive this vitally importanat work across the city. Sadly Shaun Mulhern couldn't make the meeting but his colleagues covered brilliantly.

The impact and progress with PE and School Sport is another one of our success stories over the last couple of years with around 92% of our young people now accessing two hours of high quality PE and School Sport every week. I am amazed at the fantastic progress we have made and the real excellence developing across the city.

We need to continue to develop a strategic framework to build on this success and ensure that every young person in Leeds has coaching, provision and pathways to activities, to success and to excellence.
Chris