It’s hard
to believe that we are at the end of October and at the half term break
already. It’s been an exhausting term for many of you I know but also a
productive start to the academic year. We have a great deal to celebrate in the city and have made a good start on tackling those priority areas we all know
need improvement. Like many of you I'm taking some time off at half term with
the family travelling up North, and am looking forward to the usual Halloween
fun!
GCSE results
I am
delighted that following the GCSE and IB statistical release this month
Brighton & Hove (B&H) are above the national state funded schools
average, south east average, and our statistical neighbour average, and West
Sussex and East Sussex in 5+ A*-C including English and maths GCSE. B&H is
3.4 percentage points above national, this is the highest position relative to
the national results on record. In 2012/13 when B&H was above national it
was by 1.4 percentage points.
I’d like
to congratulate and thank secondary schools for their significant contributions
they have made and the Secondary School Partnership for the work done to
provide that important school to school support and challenge. Also my Local
Authority (LA) team who have provided ongoing support and challenge at
individual school level and across the city.
The
collaborative approach we have in B&H with a family of schools and the LA
working in partnership is making a real difference. I am looking forward to
being involved in continued partnership work going forward to close the gap in
achievement for our vulnerable groups, one of our top priorities for the city
this year.
School Games Mark for 2014/15
The School
Games Mark was established as a way to acknowledge schools work and commitment
to sport and PE. Schools can gain
bronze, silver or gold marks for their efforts. This month we were able to
celebrate the fact that during the 2014-15 academic year, 38 schools in B&H
achieved a bronze, silver or gold mark, which is a significant increase from
the 29 schools in the previous year! I’d like to congratulate the 6 Gold Mark
Schools; Balfour Primary, Carden Primary, Coldean Primary, Elm Grove Primary,
Middle Street Primary & Westdene Primary. A more formal celebration for all
of the schools who achieved the mark is being planned for December 2015. More
information about the School Games Mark can be found on its website.
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| PACA receiving their award last year |
The Argus Community Stars Awards – Susie Haworth on the shortlist
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| Susie Haworth |
I am so
pleased to announce that Susie Haworth, B&H City Council’s Schools Meals
Manager, has been nominated for an Argus Community Star Award! Susie has been nominated in the Employee of
the Year category for her work on Free School Meals. Further details about the
awards can be seen on the Brighton Argus website. Good luck Susie, we hope you
win!
Holocaust Education Project
A heads up
that next month a B&H Holocaust Education Project will be launched which a
number of schools in the area that will be involved in. The project will
encourage schools and children to collect Lego pieces until the 11 December
2015. Lego will be significant as each dot on the bricks will represent a
person and the different sized brick will represent families. The collected
Lego will then form part of an exhibition at the Jubilee Library and there will
be a Holocaust Memorial Day event in the New Year. Many thanks to Paul
Harrington from Carden Primary School who is leading this innovative project.
We look forward to hearing more.
Ofsted
have been in the city this month inspecting St Mark's CofE Primary School and
St John the Baptist Catholic School and I look forward to receiving the reports
and final judgement.
School Visits
I am
working hard to get round to visit all new headteachers at their schools. I had
an extremely positive visit to Hove Park this month to meet with Rob
Niedermaier-Reed and his Chair of Governors, Mike Nicholls. It was good to hear
his vision for the school and his clear focus on important priorities. We were
able to discuss positive approaches to close the gap in achievement for
vulnerable groups, improve progress for all, and effective use of the pupil
premium. It was also refreshing to hear how quickly Rob has developed links
with his secondary colleagues and is working collaboratively with primary
schools in the area. I know Hove Park will go from strength to strength under
his leadership.
It was a
pleasure to have the opportunity to visit St Paul's Primary school in central
Brighton this week. I observed Linda Dupret the Headteacher leading a fun and
enjoyable school assembly. Some of the youngest children in the school
performed a couple of fabulous Halloween pieces in front of the whole school
singing and dancing with joy. It was a delight to watch and see how confident
the children were and how much pleasure they got from being able to perform in
front of all the children, staff and parents. I was also impressed with the
behaviour and engagement of those children watching and the pride on their
faces seeing their friends and class mates succeed. Thank you St Paul's.
Sound City Board
This month
I attended the Sound City Board, which oversees the work of our Music Education
Hub. The meeting focus on 2 keys area's the future governance arrangement for
the Music & Arts service exploring the service moving to becoming part of
the Brighton Dome and Festival and developing further the range of provision
that is needs led and supports all the cities young people to develop their
creative talents. I was pleased to read the positive evaluation report on the
Breaking the Bubble Conference that took place before the summer, which focused
on developing music provision for young people with SEND bringing together
teachers and music leaders from across Brighton & Hove, Surrey and Kent. The team are now planning
another conference for next summer and will be launching new music ensemble
provision after Christmas - watch this space for more news!
Children’s Services Roadshow
It’s the
time of year when staff in the council comes together for the roadshows. Much
of this week I have been with Pinaki and my colleagues presenting at these
events and discussing a wide range of children's services issues: budget, child
friendly city, community collaboration and partnership amongst other things.
It’s also been an opportunity to hear from colleagues the best practice that is
going on across the city to improve outcomes for our children and young people.
I was particularly impressed with staff energy and commitment at a time when we
are all facing service challenges and budget pressures.
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| Pinaki Ghoshal presents to staff |
Area review post 16
On 24th
September 2015 DfE and Department for Business, Information & Skills (BIS)
announced an area review for the Sussex Coast area including the LA areas of
East Sussex, parts of West Sussex and Brighton and Hove. This review will look
at the shape of all post-16 education and training across the area and how well
this fits with local economic and educational need. The government has said the
reviews were “designed to achieve a transition towards fewer, larger, more
resilient and efficient providers, and more effective collaboration across
institution types”. The review will last approximately 4 months and will be
focused on 11 6th form and FE colleges across the region, including City
College, BHASVIC and Varndean College, in B&H.
The
Children, Young People and Skills Committee met on the 12 October and
discussed and welcomed the review. They also agreed that in B&H they felt
strongly that our School sixth forms should also be considered as part of the
review.
Rachel
Carter (Post 16 learning and partnership adviser) and I are attending a
briefing on the review later this week and will be able to update colleagues as
the review develops.
Headteachers and Senior Leaders Conference; Inspirational Leadership
It was
good to see so many of you at the school and college leaders conference on 2
October. I have had such positive feedback the conference and about Tim
Brighouse’s and David Cameron’s presentations. I feel that they included many
of the challenges and the joys of leadership. I have said that we will look
together at what some of the ‘unbreakable plates’ might be. In my team we have
also been thinking also about the ‘butterflies’: those small actions which can
have huge impact.
The
Succession Planning Group is already thinking about a conference for next year
and would welcome thoughts, ideas and themes! Please contact me or HilaryFerries with ideas.
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| David Cameron at the conference |
School Organisation
This month
has seen further steps being taken in our work on school organisation. The
Children, Young People and Skills Committee received the report from the
independent review of our school place forecasting and recognised the good work
undertaken by the LA team in accurately forecasting pupil numbers and accepted
that there was clearly a need for additional secondary school places in the
city.
Richard
Barker (Head of School Organisation) and I also joined the Secondary Admissions
Review Steering Group this week to further consider potential options for
admissions in September 2018 which we hope to go to consultation in the spring.
We also
met with the Portslade Partnership of Schools and Councillors, hosted at
Benfield Primary School, to discuss their local situation and to explore
proposals for the future. It was a productive meeting that reflected the work
the schools in the partnership had already undertaken and future meetings are
planned.
Work is
beginning on the next iteration of the Council’s School Organisation Plan and a
framework approach is being considered. Watch this space for more information.
Feeling Good, Feeling Safe
This term
sees the launch of the Feeling Good, Feeling Safe resource for primary schools
which has been developed through a partnership with the Council, Safety Net and
some B&H primary schools. The aim of the resource is to support all
children to learn the skills they need to stay safe and to get help when they
need it. This programme is highly
recommended to support schools in their safeguarding responsibilities and has
had positive feedback from pilot schools. The resource has been or will be sent
to all primary headteachers and is available on the pier2pier website. To
request training in delivering the lessons please email
pshe@brighton-hove.gov.uk and for whole school approach to protective
behaviours training email Terri Fletcher.
Secondary Governance
Hilary
Ferries (Head of Standards and Achievement) and I joined our secondary and
special schools chairs of governors this week to have a strategic debate about
governors role in school improvement. The event was hosted at the Newman Sixth
Form College and chaired by Dominca De Rosa (Chair of Governors at Cardinal
Newman). Throughout the evening we had the opportunity to discuss 14/15
secondary results and data across the city with a particular focus on
disadvantaged groups.The group also shared and discussed feedback from other
partnerships they participate in and the implications for governors. Peter
Freeman (Chair of BHASVIC) led a interesting discussion on the post 16 area
review.
Keep in
touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons, I'd urge you all to set up accounts
for your schools if you don't already have one.
