Nicola Megson, Deputy Editor at the Yorkshire Evening Post sent me this e-mail...

"Dear Chris, I wanted to let you know that the YEP is setting up a Reader Panel. We want to find out as much as we can about what people like - and don't like - about the YEP as a paper and as a website. In the longer term, as we find out more about people's interests, we hope to communicate even more efficiently with them regarding specific stories and subjects. I think you'll agree that any opportunity to increase the dialogue we have with our readers has to be a good thing. The key is getting as many people as possible to join - and I'm hoping that you will sign up and also help push the message to as many people as possible. The bigger the numbers, the more effective the panel. You'll find the details of how to sign up in the pages of the YEP today and on the website www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk. Your help in spreading the message to your own associates, friends, colleagues and contacts would be much appreciated. Best wishes, Nicola."

I read the YEP everyday and I have signed up to help Nicola and her colleagues improve and develop the paper and the website. I hope that other colleagues will also join me.
Chris

I finished the day at Moor Allerton Hall Primary School...

The Million Green Fingers teams from Yorkshire Water had supported Liz Rushton, science and sustainability co-ordinator at the school, in tranforming their tired and overgrown wildlife garden into a truly wonderful teaching resource. In partnership with Laing Rourke, who provided excavation services and structures and CP Gill who provided wood chippings and timber the Yorkshire Water team have drawn on their skills and passion for gardening to provide a pathway trail, willow tunnel, bench and seating, a huge insect hotel, a hedgehog shelter, bird boxes and many shrubs and trees to attract a great variety of minibeasts... and it's fantastic!

We are so lucky having passionate, enthusiastic and brilliant colleagues like Liz transforming our schools and with her partners and supporters building such a wonderful teaching and learning resource for her children. At the official opening by Cllr Richard Harker we ate sandwiches made from salad vegetables and smoothies made with strawberries and raspberries the children had grown on their allotment.

I passionately believe that every school in Leeds should be developing facilities like these and creating gardens, allotments and habitats where children can grow and learn and become little eco-warriors helping us all re-use, re-cycle, re-new.
Chris

I moved on to Oakwood Primary School...

Another brilliant school doing great things in East Leeds under Becky Ingram's intelligent and very focused leadership. It was great to be able to talk to Becky and to walk around the school to meet some of her colleagues and some of her wonderful children. It was great to visit the Foundation Stage which is outstanding and draws on the work in Reggio Emilia. The talented team there were running a session for colleagues across the city showcasing their quite brilliant work.
Chris

I started the day at the RM Conference...

The 'Celebrating Success' Conference at the Queen's Hotel was a wonderful opportunity to showcase some of our best ICT and e-learning practice. The morning was focused on Foundation, Key Stage 1 and 2 while the afternoon looked at Key Stage 3 and 4 and Post 16. Two of the key note speakers at the event were Carol Allen, SEN Consultant and Claire Garside, Educational Consultant while Dirk Gilleard and I talked about the Leeds vision and Evolve, our menu of services, ideas and learning to support and guide schools in the effective use of technologies for learning.

The highlights of the two sessions were the brilliant presentations by Stephen Heppell who talked about the race for new learning across the UK and across the world. These wonderfully inspiring sessions were complemented in the morning by showcase sessions by colleagues and young people from Farsley Farfield Primary School, Alwoodley Primary School, Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Primary School, St Anthony's CE Primary School, Hugh Gaitskell Primary School, Windmill Primary School, colleagues from the South Leeds CLC and our National Strategies team. And in the afternoon by sessions by colleagues and students from Allerton High Business and Enterprise Specialist School, Ralph Thoresby High School, City of Leeds School, Mount St Mary's Catholic High School and Creative Arts and Media Diploma students.

It was an amazing day celebrating our unique and powerful partnership with RM.
Chris

And finally for today, I attended the Leeds 2012 Olympics Project Board...

It was great to hear about the work happening across the city to prepare for the London Olympics and the benefits the games will bring to Yorkshire. The opportunities for international teams to use facilities here in Leeds are being explored with Serbia, United States, Holland, China, India, Jamaica and Bangladesh; focused in areas like diving, equestrianism and more general provision. We are also talking to Paralympics GB who are exploring where they will base their whole team.

It was great to be able to talk about the wonderful work developing with 'Spirit Alive' in around 70 schools across the city where children organise and manage their own mini-olympics. I was also able to mention the work Boston Spa School and Sports College is leading with West Oaks SILC through the "International Inspirations" programme which will deliver on the LOCOG promise made to the IOC in Singapore that they would engage and inspire the youth of the world through sport. The programme is being led by UK Sport, UNICEF, the British Council, the FA Premier League and the Department for Culture Media and Sport and Boston Spa and West Oaks are leading the 'International Inspiration' for Bangladesh.
Chris

Tempo Newsam - we think … we do!

I have just been interviewed by some wonderful young people from Templenewsam Halton Primary School...
The children are taking to the airways at East Leeds FM and were interviewing me for their show. Templenewsam Halton Primary School is a great school and these young people were brilliant ambassadors for the school. East Leeds FM and the children from Temple Newsam Halton Primary School will be broadcasting on Thursday.

There will be a series of programmes during the day:

• 9am .... Sowing the Seeds: Gardening tips and an introduction to the day’s broadcasting


• 10am .... On the Beat: Chatting with local PC Peatfield and an introduction to the School Council


• 11.15am .... Top of the Class: What we think of our school and interviews with Mrs Mannion - Chair of Governors - and one of our old teachers - Mr Cooney


• 12pm .... Caravan of Love: a tribute to Michael Jackson from the Caravan of Love on the field… Moonwalking anyone?


• 1.15pm .... Making Moves: As our Year 6s prepare to move we talk to some students from Temple Moor… and Mr C prepares for his own journey…


• 2.30pm .... Who do we think we are …. Reports from the recent multicultural week at Templenewsam Halton (and a special feature on cycle-training and road safety.

Tomorrow, I'll be listening to the radio stars of the future.
chris

I moved on to another Induction Session for Education Leeds colleagues at the Derek Fatchett Centre...

These sessions always inspire me as I meet great new colleagues who have made that decision to join the A Team... the best education team anywhere! I shouldn't really be surprised because this is the group who have just signed up and should be totally committed, totally engaged and not at all cynical about the future... or why join us? These colleagues bring creativity, imagination, ideas and experience and they certainly are talented, brilliant, gorgeous and wonderful additions to their teams. Our job is to continue to develop the leadership and culture that will release their potential, their magic, their passion and target their hard work to make a real difference for our children and young people.

Colleagues today asked why the blog is so overwhelmingly positive. It is important to state once again that things are incredibly positive in our world if you are bothered to look for the magic!. I always think it is strange to think about the potential we have here in Leeds to change the world if only we could get everyone to believe... to believe passionately in themselves and understand that they really are talented, brilliant, gorgeous and wonderful. What couldn't we do if we put our minds to it?
Chris

I started the day early at Bramley St Peter's CE Primary School where Cath Harbrow, the headteacher, and her team are doing great things...

I was there to see an 'Every Child a Reader' session taught by Pam Galley. John Shute is leading this brilliantly effective programme here in Leeds. I also met Helen Rumsby who is leading the 'Every Child Counts' programme which is having equally impressive results with mathematics. Cath had arranged for me to attend their music assembly which celebrated the children's singing and playing led by the amazing Betsy Whiting. I also had the opportunity to walk around the school with Cath and to meet some of her colleagues who are obviously doing something wonderful to release such magic from the children at St Peter's.
Chris

The research is deeply depressing around how happy, healthy and safe our children are...

"Good mental health isn't something you have, but something you do.
To be mentally healthy you must value and accept yourself"

MIND

I was reading a report on mental health and it suggests that one million British children, one in ten between the ages of 5 and 16, are estimated to have mental illnesses. In any secondary school with 1000 students, 50 will be severely depressed, 100 will be distressed, 10 - 20 will be suffering with obsessive-compulsive disorder and 5 - 10 girls will have an eating disorder. The Good Childhood Inquiry in 2008 commissioned by the Children 's Society reported increasing numbers of young people with mental health problems with over a quarter regularly feeling depressed, mainly as a result of family problems and peer pressure.

Anyone who thinks that in our schools we simply deal with the standards agenda is living in cloud cuckoo land!
Chris

Ed Balls, Secretary of State, today published the 21^st Century Schools White Paper...

The White Paper is based on:

• new guarantees for pupils and parents;

• a significant devolution of power and responsibility to school leaders, matched by strengthened school accountability;

• an uncompromising approach to school improvement.

The Pupil Guarantee

• all young people get a broad and balanced curriculum and high quality qualifications, whether their strengths are practical, academic or both;
• every secondary pupil has a personal tutor;
• all pupils get 5 hours of PE and sport every week and access to cultural activities too;
• gifted and talented pupils get written confirmation of the extra challenge and support they will receive;
• all pupils with additional needs get extra help, with 4,000 extra dyslexia teachers;
• all pupils in Years 3 to 6 falling behind in English or maths get one-to-one tuition to help them get back on track;
• extend the offer of one to one or small group tuition to all pupils at the start of secondary school who were behind at the end of primary school.
• following the report of the expert group on assessment, introduce a new progress check at the end of Year 7 so parents can be confident their children have made up the lost ground.

Parents Guarantee

• regular online information about their child’s progress, behaviour and attendance;
• access to their child’s personal tutor;
• fair school admissions in line with the Admissions Code;
• that parents’ views will be listened to and reported on the School Report Card so parents know what other parents think when choosing a school;
• and where parents are unhappy with the choice of schools on offer to them, based on an annual survey of parents, local authorities will have to listen and respond to their concerns.

Home-School Agreements

• all pupils and parents will accept the school’s rules when they apply for a school place and expected to sign up to renew their commitment every year;
• schools will have stronger powers to enforce discipline through intensive support, parenting contracts and parenting orders;
• parents will have the right to complain and expect action if schools fail to act to enforce the Home School Agreement.

Strong Leadership

• The National Strategies’ literacy and numeracy hours will continue in all schools, with Ofsted continuing to inspect them as now;
• Devolve power and funding to school leaders to decide, with ring-fenced funding, what support they need to further drive up standards.
• Ensure that schools can get the support they need from other services through Children’s Trust Boards and encourage multi-agency teams based in schools.
• Building on the success of the National Leaders in Education and Academies programmes, the best head teachers will be able to run more than one school – with better pay for Executive Heads.
• High performing schools, colleges and universities will be accredited to run chains of schools in not-for-profit Accredited Schools Groups – with the first providers up and running by January.

Strengthened Accountability

The new School Report Card will include full information on school attainment, but will go well beyond it. It will set out clearly for parents:

• how the school is improving standards;
• how well it is helping those pupils who have fallen behind to catch up, and stretching the most able;
• it will report on discipline, attendance, sport, healthy eating and partnership working;
• it will set out what parents and pupils think of the school.

Pilots of the School Report Card will begin this September and will include a single, overall grade.

The Workforce

• A world-class schools system needs a world-class workforce, we are making teaching a Masters-level profession and a new ‘licence to teach’ will be introduced similar to that used by other high-status professionals like doctors and lawyers and they will be given a new entitlement for continued professional development.
• Governing bodies will become slimmer, more highly-skilled and all Chairs will be required to undergo specific new training.

We certainly live in interesting times!
Chris