I was personally delighted to hear that Paul Edwards had been awarded a Knighthood in the New Year Honours along with Ralph Tabberer, Director General for Schools at the DCSF and my friend Professor Tim Brighouse...
Paul Edwards has achieved great things here in Leeds and has been a brilliant ambassador for the City. Under Paul's leadership, Garforth Community College has become one of the most successful secondary schools in the country and the 'Schools Partnership Trust' has developed as an innovative and creative local approach to service delivery and the outreach of professional support and services to schools in Leeds. Paul is a 'National Leader of Learning' who has also worked locally, regionally and nationally to support the successful development of the Government's Academies Programme.
Paul Edwards is a highly talented leader, an innovative and creative thinker and a real asset to Garforth and Leeds. I know that the whole educational community here in Leeds will join me in congratulating him on achieving this well deserved honour.
Chris
Friday, 2 January 2009
Thursday, 1 January 2009
It was great to hear the news about Paul Edwards Knighthood but unless I am mistaken most of us will miss out on life's really big and important prizes...
I have said this before but I know that I am never going to be Prime Minister, win the FA Cup, win a Pulitzer Prize, win an Oscar or a Nobel Prize and I am unlikely to win X Factor or Strictly Come Dancing, win the lottery or get a Knighthood. Yet at the beginning of another New Year there is so much to be positive about... there are so many reasons to be cheerful because I know that I am eligible for life's small prizes; small things that are worth so much... a thank you after I've done something really well... a touch or a word when I am feeling down or things haven't worked out so well. ..a kiss from a loved one... a cuddle from a friend... a starry night... a full moon... an empty parking space. .. a beautiful smile... a crackling fire... a great meal... a glorious sunset... hot home made soup... freshly baked warm bread... cold beer... dark chocolate... great coffee.
Whatever it is that you are trying to achieve this year success won't be dependent on genius, talent or innate ability. OK, it ill have a lot to do with luck, being in the right place at the right time and who is on your side supporting you, but more importantly it will be about persistence, determination and sheer hard work. These things will help you achieve your goals and help us continue to deliver brilliant outcomes for children and young people here in Leeds in 2009.
Together we can make 2009 a year to remember. A year when everyone succeeds and we continue to build brilliant and make magic. This year could mark the beginning of a year of success and discovery for us all and I hope that this new year all your dreams turn into reality and all your efforts and hard work turn into great achievements.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Chris
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
It's my last day now until Friday 2nd January so the blog will go quiet for a few days while I unwind, relax, recharge and get ready for yet another brilliant year here in Leeds...
I hope everyone out there manages to do the same. And remember when you are out there... think team, think family, think about the things that really, really matter and hold hands and stick together.
Take care.
Chris
I hope everyone out there manages to do the same. And remember when you are out there... think team, think family, think about the things that really, really matter and hold hands and stick together.
Take care.
Chris
Monday, 22 December 2008
I wanted to write at the end of another amazing year to thank colleagues for all your hard work and to encourage you to celebrate our many achievements over Christmas and the New Year. These are not mediocre times and your contribution to the Education Leeds story has been one of passion, commitment, energy, courage and hard work and I am really grateful because the impact has been fantastic.
We have had another incredible year… 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 bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade which secured £450,000 of lottery funding and the success of our ‘Find Your Talent’ bid, which has secured around £2.5 million of lottery funding.
We launched our emotional health and wellbeing 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, 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 the House of Lords for our work with International New Arrivals as well as recognition from Ofsted through one of their thematic surveys which identified good practice on social responsibility and community cohesion. Our Chinese Supplementary Schools have also been recognised as providers of excellent practice by the House of Lords. 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 gave us the best satisfaction rating we have ever had from our schools.
Finally, we held our first ever 'Spirit Awards' at Elland Road on Friday night to recognise the brilliant achievements of our colleagues. Thank you to everyone who attended, well done to everyone who was nominated and to those who made it into the top three, and congratulations to the winners: Ann Lomas, the BSF team, the Operations service, the Health initiatives team, Kaya Barker, Eve McLeish and the VI team, Peter Saunders and Sally Bavage - you really are fantastic, wonderful, brilliant and talented colleagues, and now you have the awards to prove it!
Thanks to everyone for your persistence and determination to make a difference. Our brilliant schools, and our fantastic children and young people, have achieved more than ever thanks to the energy, patience, and commitment of the many talented teams working so hard across the city. Together, here in Leeds, we have made a tremendous difference and we must continue to find, nurture and release the magic. We must continue to celebrate our schools’ successes, and work to create an even better tomorrow for all our children and young people.
I hope that this Christmas brings you and those you love… delight and simplicity, foolishness and fantasy and noise, angels and miracles and wonder and innocence and magic… we have certainly proved this year that you are talented, brilliant, gorgeous and wonderful!
Best wishes
Chris
We have had another incredible year… 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 bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade which secured £450,000 of lottery funding and the success of our ‘Find Your Talent’ bid, which has secured around £2.5 million of lottery funding.
We launched our emotional health and wellbeing 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, 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 the House of Lords for our work with International New Arrivals as well as recognition from Ofsted through one of their thematic surveys which identified good practice on social responsibility and community cohesion. Our Chinese Supplementary Schools have also been recognised as providers of excellent practice by the House of Lords. 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 gave us the best satisfaction rating we have ever had from our schools.
Finally, we held our first ever 'Spirit Awards' at Elland Road on Friday night to recognise the brilliant achievements of our colleagues. Thank you to everyone who attended, well done to everyone who was nominated and to those who made it into the top three, and congratulations to the winners: Ann Lomas, the BSF team, the Operations service, the Health initiatives team, Kaya Barker, Eve McLeish and the VI team, Peter Saunders and Sally Bavage - you really are fantastic, wonderful, brilliant and talented colleagues, and now you have the awards to prove it!
Thanks to everyone for your persistence and determination to make a difference. Our brilliant schools, and our fantastic children and young people, have achieved more than ever thanks to the energy, patience, and commitment of the many talented teams working so hard across the city. Together, here in Leeds, we have made a tremendous difference and we must continue to find, nurture and release the magic. We must continue to celebrate our schools’ successes, and work to create an even better tomorrow for all our children and young people.
I hope that this Christmas brings you and those you love… delight and simplicity, foolishness and fantasy and noise, angels and miracles and wonder and innocence and magic… we have certainly proved this year that you are talented, brilliant, gorgeous and wonderful!
Best wishes
Chris
Friday, 19 December 2008
This evening I attended the Education Leeds Christmas Party at Leeds United's Banqueting Suite...
It was great to see so many colleagues and to see them having a really good time. The food was good, the band were really good and the team had worked really hard to bring a sparkle at the venue and to make the party go brilliantly. We also used the occasion to announce the winners of the first 'Spirit Awards' recognising brilliant colleagues and teams in the eight categories. And the winners were:
CATEGORY: Putting customers first:
WINNER: Dev Phull and the Operations service.
CATEGORY: Looking after Leeds
WINNER: Eve McLeish and the VI team.
CATEGORY: Health and Wellbeing:
WINNER: The Health Initiatives team,
CATEGORY: Personal Achievement:
WINNER: Kaya Barker,
CATEGORY: Leader of the Year:
WINNER: Anne Lomas,
CATEGORY: Treating people fairly:
WINNER: Peter Saunders,
It was great to see so many colleagues and to see them having a really good time. The food was good, the band were really good and the team had worked really hard to bring a sparkle at the venue and to make the party go brilliantly. We also used the occasion to announce the winners of the first 'Spirit Awards' recognising brilliant colleagues and teams in the eight categories. And the winners were:
CATEGORY: Putting customers first:
WINNER: Dev Phull and the Operations service.
CATEGORY: Looking after Leeds
WINNER: Eve McLeish and the VI team.
CATEGORY: Health and Wellbeing:
WINNER: The Health Initiatives team,
CATEGORY: Personal Achievement:
WINNER: Kaya Barker,
CATEGORY: Leader of the Year:
WINNER: Anne Lomas,
CATEGORY: Treating people fairly:
WINNER: Peter Saunders,
CATEGORY: Colleague of the year:
WINNER: Sally Bavage.
CATEGORY: Team of the year:
WINNER: The BSF team,
These are some amazing colleagues and teams who have achieved great things this year and it was brilliant to see their work recognised like this
Chris
I went to Rawdon St Peter's CE Primary School first thing this morning...
I went to see Caroline Sibson who was appointed to the headteacher post after holding the fort over the last couple of years. Caroline is clearly doing a really good job with her talented, brilliant, gorgeous and wonderful team. They treated me to a special assembly featuring their unique, brilliant and very powerful presentation of the Eva Schloss story which they performed at the Stephen Lawrence Education Standard Celebration earlier this term. The child who danced the role of Eva was incredible; dancing with such emotion and feeling. Then, Year 5 and 6 also sang one of the Christmas songs they had performed at the Church last night, which was great.
Rawdon St Peter's CE Primary School is a great little school and it is releasing a very special magic this Christmas for some fantastic children. I was even given one of their special teddies to take away so I wouldn't forget them.
It was a really wonderful end to yet another brilliant term here in Leeds.
Chris
I went to see Caroline Sibson who was appointed to the headteacher post after holding the fort over the last couple of years. Caroline is clearly doing a really good job with her talented, brilliant, gorgeous and wonderful team. They treated me to a special assembly featuring their unique, brilliant and very powerful presentation of the Eva Schloss story which they performed at the Stephen Lawrence Education Standard Celebration earlier this term. The child who danced the role of Eva was incredible; dancing with such emotion and feeling. Then, Year 5 and 6 also sang one of the Christmas songs they had performed at the Church last night, which was great.
Rawdon St Peter's CE Primary School is a great little school and it is releasing a very special magic this Christmas for some fantastic children. I was even given one of their special teddies to take away so I wouldn't forget them.
It was a really wonderful end to yet another brilliant term here in Leeds.
Chris
Thursday, 18 December 2008
My colleague David Bateson sent me this final e-mail...
"Hi Chris just and end of phase update I am retiring today after 38 years within Education Leeds/Leeds City Council and want to share another set of successes from my TEAM and from participants on the NATIONAL PROGRAMME for Specialist LEADERS of Behaviour and Attendance before the end of today. Seven MORE STAFF have successfully completed the NPSLBA programme five from the BESD SILC an two from the high school settings and the numbers will go from strength to strength in 2009 when there will be another 30+ on the programme. The permanent exclusion figures are on target with ONLY 11 confirmed this term. ALL the team are working hard with our partners to support as many pupils as possible within the school setting and reduce the fixed term exclusions across the city. Cheers David"
David and colleagues in the Pupil Placement Team have worked magic and I know that we will miss David's passion, commitment, enthusiasm and belief.
Chris
"Hi Chris just and end of phase update I am retiring today after 38 years within Education Leeds/Leeds City Council and want to share another set of successes from my TEAM and from participants on the NATIONAL PROGRAMME for Specialist LEADERS of Behaviour and Attendance before the end of today. Seven MORE STAFF have successfully completed the NPSLBA programme five from the BESD SILC an two from the high school settings and the numbers will go from strength to strength in 2009 when there will be another 30+ on the programme. The permanent exclusion figures are on target with ONLY 11 confirmed this term. ALL the team are working hard with our partners to support as many pupils as possible within the school setting and reduce the fixed term exclusions across the city. Cheers David"
David and colleagues in the Pupil Placement Team have worked magic and I know that we will miss David's passion, commitment, enthusiasm and belief.
Chris
I visited Garforth Green Lane Primary School this afternoon...
I went to see Tammie Prince the new headteacher and Tammie showed me around the school and introduced me to some of her team and some of her wonderful children. I also met Nicola Davies, the Year 3 Coordinator for Modern Foreign Languages, who was recently awarded MFL Teacher of the Year.
It was great to visit this little school and meet some talented colleagues who are releasing magic with some amazing children.
Chris
I went to see Tammie Prince the new headteacher and Tammie showed me around the school and introduced me to some of her team and some of her wonderful children. I also met Nicola Davies, the Year 3 Coordinator for Modern Foreign Languages, who was recently awarded MFL Teacher of the Year.
It was great to visit this little school and meet some talented colleagues who are releasing magic with some amazing children.
Chris
I moved on to the Blenheim Christmas Fuddle...
I wanted to be there to thank everyone after another great year and as I looked around the room I realised that I was in the presence of some incredibly talented and effective colleagues whose work in almost every area is simply outstanding. This group of colleagues work with some of our most special children and they are magic!
Chris
I wanted to be there to thank everyone after another great year and as I looked around the room I realised that I was in the presence of some incredibly talented and effective colleagues whose work in almost every area is simply outstanding. This group of colleagues work with some of our most special children and they are magic!
Chris
I attended the Merrion Christmas Fuddle today...
I wanted to be there to thank everyone after another great year and as I looked around the room I realised that I was in the presence of some incredibly talented and effective colleagues whose work in almost every area is simply outstanding. They really are a unique and very special group of colleagues.
Chris
I wanted to be there to thank everyone after another great year and as I looked around the room I realised that I was in the presence of some incredibly talented and effective colleagues whose work in almost every area is simply outstanding. They really are a unique and very special group of colleagues.
Chris
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