I was reading about the marked difference in Bradford results depending on where you live...
Apparently a Freedom of Information request has revealed that last year only 3.3% of students living in Holme Wood in the south of Bradford achieved 'the expected benchmark of five good GCSEs including English and mathematics'. However if you lived in Ilkley, on the other side of Bradford, 86.3% of students achieved 'the expected benchmark of five good GCSEs including English and mathematics'.
Raising aspiration, expectation and performance is a hugely complex issue and probably the greatest challenge facing us in education today linked to anti-social behaviour, teenage pregnancy, persistent absence, knife-crime. WE are doing great things, but are we doing enough.
It would be interesting to know the highs and lows of living here in Leeds?
Chris
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Friday, 17 October 2008
I moved on to a Community Consultation event at Premier Farnell's Maybrook International Distribution Centre on the Castleton Road in West Leeds...
The event was opened by John Battle MP who talked pasionately about community engagement, social responsibility and employment opportunities in West Leeds. Dawn Newsome talked about some brilliant work Premier Farnell are doing with Armley Helping Hands and Bill Pullen talked about the support Farnley Park High School has received from Premier Farnell colleagues.
Premier Farnell is clearly a very special company working with Business in the Community and Leeds Ahead to make a real difference to its community in West Leeds. They are one of the Sunday Times Companies that Count and have also recently been identified as one of the Sunday Times Top 50 Companies women want to work for.
Chris
The event was opened by John Battle MP who talked pasionately about community engagement, social responsibility and employment opportunities in West Leeds. Dawn Newsome talked about some brilliant work Premier Farnell are doing with Armley Helping Hands and Bill Pullen talked about the support Farnley Park High School has received from Premier Farnell colleagues.
Premier Farnell is clearly a very special company working with Business in the Community and Leeds Ahead to make a real difference to its community in West Leeds. They are one of the Sunday Times Companies that Count and have also recently been identified as one of the Sunday Times Top 50 Companies women want to work for.
Chris
I went on to the Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood Strategy Launch at the Cardigan Centre...
Alison Hadley, Director of the National Teenage Pregnancy Unit at the DCSF, was talking about the national challenge and how we are working together on this hugely important national and local agenda to relentlessly pursue and reduce teenage conceptions here in Leeds. Rosemary Archer had asked me to talk briefly about the Healthy Schools work and the role schools are playing in this important work. As the token man, I talked about our brilliant provision; the primary schools, secondary schools, PRUs and SILCs and the improving outcomes we have seen this year. Increasingly we are reaching our target and priority groups through some fantastic initiatives:
Alison Hadley, Director of the National Teenage Pregnancy Unit at the DCSF, was talking about the national challenge and how we are working together on this hugely important national and local agenda to relentlessly pursue and reduce teenage conceptions here in Leeds. Rosemary Archer had asked me to talk briefly about the Healthy Schools work and the role schools are playing in this important work. As the token man, I talked about our brilliant provision; the primary schools, secondary schools, PRUs and SILCs and the improving outcomes we have seen this year. Increasingly we are reaching our target and priority groups through some fantastic initiatives:
- Healthy Schools;
- PSHE programme;
- The Power of Me;
- SEAL;
- STEPS; and
- much, much more!
Our collective challenge around this important issue reflects so much of our shared agenda. It is about aspiration, expectation, resilience, self-esteem and efficacy. Our collective response must be about passionate leadership, an inclusive culture, intelligent accountability, local ownership and constant and relentless communication with young people as active and engaged partners who can help us shape, refine and develop our services and support.
Chris
My colleague Andy Humphreys, Research and Information Officer in our Performance Management and Information Team, sent me some more great news about our Key Stage 4 performance this year...
The headline percentage at 5+ grades A*-C has increased again, this year by 5.4% and we have exceeded our LPSA stretch target set in 2005, our DCFS agreed target and the Government's own national average target for 2008. The 5+A*-C including English and maths indicator shows that Leeds performance has improved by 4.2%, significantly narrowing the gap to the national average by over 3% points to leave us just 1% point away. There has also been a significant improvement on 5+A*-G performance in Leeds with an increase of 2.4%, building on the 1.6% increase in 2007. Finally, the number of pupils leaving without any qualifications has fallen 1.6% to 2.8%, after remaining at 4.4% for the previous two years. This is all brilliant news.
Chris
Please note these are still provisional figures for maintained schools only and don't as yet include the David Young Community Academy.
The headline percentage at 5+ grades A*-C has increased again, this year by 5.4% and we have exceeded our LPSA stretch target set in 2005, our DCFS agreed target and the Government's own national average target for 2008. The 5+A*-C including English and maths indicator shows that Leeds performance has improved by 4.2%, significantly narrowing the gap to the national average by over 3% points to leave us just 1% point away. There has also been a significant improvement on 5+A*-G performance in Leeds with an increase of 2.4%, building on the 1.6% increase in 2007. Finally, the number of pupils leaving without any qualifications has fallen 1.6% to 2.8%, after remaining at 4.4% for the previous two years. This is all brilliant news.
Chris
Please note these are still provisional figures for maintained schools only and don't as yet include the David Young Community Academy.
My colleague Jenny Davies, BSF Communications Support Assistant, sent me this after she accompanied one of the Swedish teachers groups to the West Oaks SILC...
"Dear Chris, Just a quick note to tell you how fabulous all the staff and students at West Oaks SILC were in welcoming our Swedish visitors. Everything about the day was planned in the utmost detail, and with so much care and attention that we really felt that we had gained an accurate picture of the excellent work they do there. To get the pupils to cook us a three course meal, eat with us, and interview us was inspired! I must confess of being slightly in awe of the personalised provision, and will certainly take away many of their ideas to use in my future teaching. The thing that really summed it up for me was just seeing the joy on every child's face - they were learning through having fun (surely the best way). I hope that you can pass on my thanks, and that of the Swedish vice-principals, to all the staff at the school for a wonderful day. Best wishes, Jenny."
"Dear Chris, Just a quick note to tell you how fabulous all the staff and students at West Oaks SILC were in welcoming our Swedish visitors. Everything about the day was planned in the utmost detail, and with so much care and attention that we really felt that we had gained an accurate picture of the excellent work they do there. To get the pupils to cook us a three course meal, eat with us, and interview us was inspired! I must confess of being slightly in awe of the personalised provision, and will certainly take away many of their ideas to use in my future teaching. The thing that really summed it up for me was just seeing the joy on every child's face - they were learning through having fun (surely the best way). I hope that you can pass on my thanks, and that of the Swedish vice-principals, to all the staff at the school for a wonderful day. Best wishes, Jenny."
Thanks for the feedback Jenny. I agree that it is a brilliant learning place with an amazing team releasing real magic with these very special young people.
Chris
Thursday, 16 October 2008
This evening I was invited to Hunslet Moor Primary School's 'East meets West Charity Dinner'...
Year 6 children had set up the enterprise company, Events 'R' Us "We Make It Happen"and with £100 had designed, arranged, managed and delivered an evening of inspiration, enterprise, the arts, great food and it was simply magic as these photos show.
Year 6 children had set up the enterprise company, Events 'R' Us "We Make It Happen"and with £100 had designed, arranged, managed and delivered an evening of inspiration, enterprise, the arts, great food and it was simply magic as these photos show.
We had Irish dancing, Indian dancing, brilliant singers and fabulous food. We also had brief speeches by inspirational leaders including Cllr Mohammed Iqbal, Reverend Bob Shaw, Faruk Miah, Maxine Room, Dorothy Smith and I. We all talked about our jobs, our inspirations and our messages for young people at Hunslet Moor Primary School. The message that came over was that "real leaders are ordinary people with extra-ordinary determination."
It was a wonderful evening and the children were fantastic and certainly did the school proud.
Chris
It was a wonderful evening and the children were fantastic and certainly did the school proud.
Chris
My colleague Richard Boughey, Service Delivery and Transformation Manager sent me this...
"Hello Chris, I had the privilege to attend part of the Handheld conference in London yesterday and saw the presentation by Cathy Morgan and Joyce Ness from RM about the work of Leeds schools using handheld technologies like the Sony Playstation Portable. They had the difficult time slot just before lunch and just after Mark Standley - principal of Highland Tech High in Alaska, Anchorage who spoke about a project using helicopters to provide wifi clouds! But despite this they delivered an extremely engaging, student focused presentation that was very well received by the large audience at the session. The wonderful work of Leeds schools using these technologies with students impressed everyone and later that day in another session it was referred to a couple of times. My overall view was that with all of amazing people we have, doing the fantastic things they do, we are very placed but maybe a lesson is to layer the solutions rather than looking for single solutions. Interestingly there were so many Eee PC type devices on show that it was hard to find any traditional laptops. At the end of the day my colleague Claire Baines and I listened to Lord Puttnam give a facinating speech. We also stayed on try to win some technology to bring back for the schools of Leeds but I'm afraid we failed miserably! Thanks Richard."
"Hello Chris, I had the privilege to attend part of the Handheld conference in London yesterday and saw the presentation by Cathy Morgan and Joyce Ness from RM about the work of Leeds schools using handheld technologies like the Sony Playstation Portable. They had the difficult time slot just before lunch and just after Mark Standley - principal of Highland Tech High in Alaska, Anchorage who spoke about a project using helicopters to provide wifi clouds! But despite this they delivered an extremely engaging, student focused presentation that was very well received by the large audience at the session. The wonderful work of Leeds schools using these technologies with students impressed everyone and later that day in another session it was referred to a couple of times. My overall view was that with all of amazing people we have, doing the fantastic things they do, we are very placed but maybe a lesson is to layer the solutions rather than looking for single solutions. Interestingly there were so many Eee PC type devices on show that it was hard to find any traditional laptops. At the end of the day my colleague Claire Baines and I listened to Lord Puttnam give a facinating speech. We also stayed on try to win some technology to bring back for the schools of Leeds but I'm afraid we failed miserably! Thanks Richard."
Isn't Leeds brilliant!
Chris
MORE BRILLIANT NEWS!
My colleague John Paxton who heads up the Integrated Youth Support Service here in Leeds sent me this brilliant news...
"Chris, We have uploaded August data to NCCIS and the results have been viewed and verified by DCSF. NEET is 8.44%. This compares with 9.5% for August 2007. It is the best NEET outcome since 8.2% in July 2005 (which is the lowest ever month for Leeds since records began in April 2004)). The Not Knowns figure is 5.51%. This is our lowest ever for Leeds and compares with 6.3% for August 2007. Taking these two results together, we can say that August 2008 has produced the best outcomes for any month since records began. John"
This is incredible news in a year when our overall results are also fantastic.
Chris
"Chris, We have uploaded August data to NCCIS and the results have been viewed and verified by DCSF. NEET is 8.44%. This compares with 9.5% for August 2007. It is the best NEET outcome since 8.2% in July 2005 (which is the lowest ever month for Leeds since records began in April 2004)). The Not Knowns figure is 5.51%. This is our lowest ever for Leeds and compares with 6.3% for August 2007. Taking these two results together, we can say that August 2008 has produced the best outcomes for any month since records began. John"
This is incredible news in a year when our overall results are also fantastic.
Chris
BRILLIANT NEWS!
My colleague Helen Plimmer, Adviser for Physical Education, Sport and Residential Education sent me some more good news today...
"Hi Chris,, Just to let you know we met and beat both the national PESSCL target of 85% and the council stretch target of 90%... we got 91%!! Good news and a big sigh of relief!! Regards Helen"
"Hi Chris,, Just to let you know we met and beat both the national PESSCL target of 85% and the council stretch target of 90%... we got 91%!! Good news and a big sigh of relief!! Regards Helen"
Helen's passion, commitment and determination has led this work for us and working with her colleagues in schools and clubs everyone has worked incredibly hard to deliver these brilliant results.
Chris
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