October has been a time for us all to focus on Mental Health. I had the pleasure of joining council colleagues, NHS staff, young people and wider partners for a fabulous event, held up in the i360 pod, to raise awareness in advance of the launch of the new NHS anti-stigma campaign on 10 October.

Jo Lyons, Regan Delf and Mayor Pete West on the i360 for the #IAMWHOLE campaign

Created in Brighton & Hove through a partnership between the local NHS, Brighton & Hove City Council and young people from the city's YMCA Right Here project, the #IAMWHOLE campaign is aimed at young people aged 13-25 across the country, as well as to parents, teachers, employers and services that provide mental health support. At the end of the day, the brand had reached fifth place in the world for tweets, had received four million hits on Facebook and over 5,000 individual people had drawn circles on their hands. By raising awareness of the issues and support available, the #IAMWHOLE campaign aims to help teenagers and young adults look out for each other as well as making sure everyone knows where to go for professional advice if they need it. 

Jordan Stephens from The Rizzle Kicks

A new national website has been launched: www.findgetgive.com, designed to help young people to search for support, share stories about their own mental health and give feedback on services they have used for others to read. ‘Find Get Give’ also includes resources for parents and carers, so please spread the word. 

Our secondary schools, colleges and the youth council were supported to take the ideas from the city campaign and develop their own response. Campaign clothing was provided, specially designed by #IAMWHOLE campaign ambassador, Jordan Stephens, from UK hip-hop duo The Rizzle Kicks.

It has been great to see young people across the city developing films, delivering lessons to peers in schools, having their own thunderclaps and many more imaginative ideas. 

#IAMWHOLE at PACA

Thank you for all your support. We can't wait to see a flood of ‘circle on hand selfies’ coming from Brighton & Hove schools and colleges over the coming weeks and look forward to working with all our schools and wider partners to improve mental health support for our young people. 

Congratulations to St Nicolas Primary who were awarded a Good, a great achievement following their last Ofsted Assessment of Requires Improvement. The report emphasises the strong leadership of the headteacher and the positive contribution that the governing body makes. Well done to Andy and the staff team at St Nicholas. Ofsted have also inspected St Bartholomew’s this term and have judged it still to require improvement. Inspectors recognised the positive direction of travel and noted the very positive response from pupils and parents and praised the accuracy of their school improvement tracking systems. 

Ofsted have also been in the city visiting St Peter’s, the Bilingual Primary School and City College. I look forward to reporting back on the outcomes of these inspections in my next blog. 

The LGA Peer Review – Safeguarding 

We have all been busy in Families, Children and Learning engaging in a Local Government Association (LGA) peer review of Safeguarding. This has been a positive experience where there has been a rigorous look at our processes and practice. While there were a few things they thought we might want to do differently in the future, most of which we were already aware of, they were overwhelmingly positive about our direction of travel. The LGA’s view is that we are doing the right things and that the experience of children and young people as a consequence is improving. They remarked at numerous points on our positive culture which involves us being reflective of our practice, open to learning and child focussed. Although we must never be complacent, we are proud of the work our services are doing and the difference they are making to the lives of very vulnerable children and young people across the city.

Congratulations to award nominees

I’m delighted that our Virtual School has been nominated for the Children and Young People Now Awards 2016 for their work developing Adoption Support. This is alongside two other teams in Families, Children and Learning; the Breastfeeding Team and the Early Parenting Assessment Programme (EPAP). 

Hannah Cydnie, our young apprentice, has also been shortlisted for the Public Service People Managers’ Association (PPMA) Apprentice of the Year 2016 award. This is fantastic recognition of the quality of our apprentices and the support the council offers them. 

The new Brighton & Hove Inclusion Support Service

Mo Bham, Head of Brighton & Hove Inclusion Support Service

Our new Head of Service for the recently formed Brighton & Hove Inclusion Support Service, Mohammed Bham, has now settled in to his new role. Mo has been meeting headteachers and sharing his vision for the Service. The city’s reorganisation of Educational Psychology and Learning Support Services has properly taken shape this term with a new integrated service in a new home at the County Oak Avenue site. The Integrated Support Service priorities and ways of working should maximise effectiveness and improvement with all our education settings to support inclusion. They are transforming into a more unified service of the future for children and young people (ages 0 – 25 years) with additional needs. They are in the process of developing a unified ‘single point of access’ request system that should help provide an integrated response. Schools will be receiving regular updates via the Schools Bulletin and their link Educational Psychologist and Specialist Teacher.

Talking to Mo, it is clear he is proud to be leading the service, and recognises the team as a talented, creative group of specialist staff providing a prevention and early intervention service to improve the education, learning, and social emotional and mental health of all children and young people with additional needs. 

Contact details for the new service are: Brighton & Hove Inclusion Support Service, c/o Brighton & Hove Music & Arts Building, County Oak Avenue, Brighton BN1 8DJ. Tel: 01273 293481 

Any Age Apprentices 

We are recruiting five level three apprentices to work in the council’s nurseries.  The apprenticeships have been promoted by an open evening at City College and publicity featuring an existing nursery apprentice to explain that apprentices can be any age. Please click the link below to read an interview with Hazel about her experience as an apprentice: https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/content/children-and-education/working-childcare/apprenticeship-information-childcare-providers

Thank you to Hazel for being an inspiration to others and to the Early Years team for their work.  

Brighton & Hove Education Partnership

The engagement with headteachers, governors and wider partners about the further development of our Brighton & Hove Educational Partnership linking local schools, colleges, universities, wider partners and the local authority is well underway. This is an important opportunity to maintain and grow the strong partnerships and way of working we have established to ensure high education standards and to achieve the best outcomes for our young people by looking to each other and further afield to share and develop best and innovative practice.

Headteachers and governors are invited to go online and have your say here. Hilary Ferries (Senior Adviser: Education Partnerships) is leading a range of discussion opportunities throughout this term: please contact her if you would like to engage further and provide your views. 

Governance, Strategy and Partnership 

I joined senior colleagues from Education and Skills on 13 October for our termly Governance, Strategy and Partnership Meeting. There was a packed room full of governors representing our schools across the city. 

Roger Snell at GSP Meeting

Peter Chivers (Head of Music and Arts) talked about our future city and developing a network for any governors to ensure that we continue to develop interest in the Arts and Culture in all schools. 

Dion Page-Hammond (Education Safeguarding Officer) reminded governors of their safeguarding responsibilities and informed the group that he would be setting up meetings with safeguarding governors, in a similar structure to our Equalities Focus Groups.

Roger Snell (Schools’ Traded Services Manager) provided a demonstration of BEEM (http://www.beem.org.uk) and shared the range of traded services the LA provides to schools. 

Ellen Mulvihill (Head of Standards and Achievement) gave an update on our positive headline results for 2016. She particularly focussed on how Ofsted have been looking closely at the fact that pupils who are disadvantaged are not achieving well enough. Governors were reminded of their role to scrutinise and monitor what their schools are doing for these disadvantaged children. 

The evening was also an opportunity to engage with governors on the development of our Brighton & Hove Education Partnership model and for governors to discuss and share their views and shape this important development. 

National Adoption Week 

Adoption week 

It was great to see a range of events taking place this month for Adoption week, which began on 17 October. Our Virtual School led the way leading a number of activities to promote our work with our adopted children and families. At the Secondary Designated Teacher Network, a presentation and discussion took place on how best to support adopted children. It’s clear that attachment awareness is high on the agenda for our schools and we are beginning to see how this is having an impact on a number of schools across the city. 

At the primary network, Lonny Offley from Downs Juniors delivered a presentation on best practice on adoption support in her school. This was very impressive work and was fascinating to hear how one school were listening to the voice of their adopted children and having special lessons for children to explain what Fostering and Adoption means. 

Annual School and College Leaders Conference 

Pinaki and Christine Gilbert at Annual Leaders Conference

Pinaki and I joined education leaders from across the city’s schools and colleges for our annual education conference at Sussex University. This year’s event focussed on building leadership capacity and partnership working. Christine Gilbert led a debate on ‘leading in a school-led system’ and shared a number of models from across the country that are being developed. 

Adam Wright – a motivational speaker – looked with us at some creative approaches to ‘optimising whole school performance’. The feedback from the event was extremely positive with headteachers and leaders commenting on the importance of taking some time out to learn and network together outside of school and college. 

Year 11 Employer Speed Dating Event 

Kai (year 11 student at the Connected Hub)

This month we organised and facilitated an Employer Speed Dating Event at BACA for year 11 students from our Alternative Provision Schools (Pupil Referral Unit, Homewood College and the Connected Hub). The event gave students a chance to meet and be interviewed by ‘real employers’. The students who came all had a massive boost to their self-esteem and confidence which is so important for this group of young people. The students were buzzing afterwards. Kai was delighted to agree work experience with Wilmott Dixon Construction. Max, who wants to be a cricket coach, has been offered an interview on a Level 2 sports course and was advised that if he achieves the grades required, he can apply to the Cricket Academy at BACA.  Several students were offered work experience at Barclays Digital Lab. Another young person is passionate about building kit cars and Latest TV have asked her to write an article about it which they intend to film, broadcast and forward as part of their weekly digital blog to the BBC.

Speed interviews with 11 employers and 4 training providers

Employers also felt that they learnt from the day. Our early years provider said the event highlighted the need for employers to be more flexible when it comes to interviewing young people. The students that she spoke to at the event had experience, abilities and skills, however either didn’t realise they were relevant, or didn’t know how to portray this in an interview situation. As a result, she will be providing more interview guidance through Brighton & Hove City Council’s webpages to support Early Years providers for interviewing young people. 

National Leaders of Education

National leaders of education are headteachers, executive heads and CEOs, who have experience of effectively supporting schools in challenging circumstances. I’m delighted that Jonathan Cooper, headteacher from St Luke's and Emma Lake, headteacher from Hangleton and Benfield have both been awarded NLE status. It is essential that we have system leaders in the city, they are an important element of a self-improving system and the way we deliver school-to-school support in Brighton & Hove. Jonathan and Emma are available to carry out reviews of your schools if you would find that helpful and are currently bidding for school-to-school support funding through the Aspire Teaching School Alliance.  

For more information about NLE’s programme, please click this link: 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-leaders-of-education-a-guide-for-potential-applicants

Our Future City event - #BeCollective 

I’m looking forward to attending the next #BeCollective event on Mon 14 November, at Dukes at Komedia on Gardner Street. This will be the Brighton premiere of ‘Most Likely to Succeed’; a Sundance-nominated documentary film that puts forward a powerful case for the transformation of modern schooling.

‘Most Likely to Succeed’ film

Please view the 2 minute trailer here: https://vimeo.com/122502930 

Since its Sundance premiere, ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ has brought thousands of communities together to engage in lively discussions on the future of education. The film inspires its audiences to revolutionise learning for the 21st century and is a call to action to students, parents, educators, policymakers and organisations to take a stand for the potential of every young person. ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ offers an intelligent critique of the status quo in schools in the United States and provides powerful food for thought for everyone working in the UK context as well. 

A dynamic group of people from across Brighton & Hove; school and system leaders, teachers, parents/carers, employers, academics, arts and cultural providers and philanthropists will all be watching the film together. After the screening there will then be an opportunity to continue conversations and to network. I look forward to seeing those who are attending on 14 November. 

Schools Christmas Concert, Monday 5 December 2016, 7pm

Schools Christmas Concert at the Brighton Centre

While Christmas might seem like a long time ahead, tickets for the Schools Christmas Concert will sell out quickly. Over 1,200 young singers from Brighton & Hove's primary, junior and special schools will perform a mixture of traditional and especially written songs at the Brighton Centre. We will also see performances from the Brighton & Hove Youth Big Band, Concert Band and Orchestra 360 - an inclusive ensemble for children with Special Education Needs/Disabilities, their parents and siblings. Tickets are now on sale for the biggest event in the music services calendar! Telephone bookings can be made at Ticketmaster on 0844 847 1515 or you can book on line http://brightoncentre.co.uk/whats-on/2016/brighton-hove-schools-concert/

Future Headteacher and School & College Leader events
The next Primary Headteacher Meeting will be taking place on Tuesday 29 November, at the University of Sussex Gallery. The theme will be reducing the differences in progress and attainment between disadvantaged and all children.

The next Secondary and Continuing Education meeting will be on Friday 25 November, at Hove Park school, and the theme will be Post-16, including Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG). 

The next School & College Leaders’ Business Meeting will take place on Friday 24 February, venue tbc. The theme for the meeting will be Maths and the further development of our city-wide strategy. 

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

Starting the New Academic Year on a High!

Brighton i360

September is an extremely busy month for families and schools but also a positive time for many children and young people starting new phases of education. Not only has the i360 gone up this Summer, we have also had a great set of education results this year with cross phase improvement. Congratulations to schools and their pupils on these impressive results. Early years’ continues to improve and we are closing the gap with the national phonics score. We are above the national average for KS1 and the results for KS2 placed us in joint 22 out of all local authorities nationally for attainment. It is the first year that GCSE results have been published using attainment and progress 8 and again we are above national and A level results again improved from last year. I know there is still more to do for every child in every school to achieve well, but would like to congratulate colleagues on our success across the city. 


Youth Service Summer Update
The Youth Service had a busy and successful summer, starting off with the vulnerable young people’s team delivering the annual ‘Youth Art’s Award in a Week’ programme. Eight young people completed their Bronze Award, in addition one young woman completed her silver, completing the GCSE requirements she needed to get into her chosen college course in September.

The detached team with our specialist sexual health and substance misuse workers continued sessions throughout the afternoons and evenings across the parks, with particular focus on the groups of young people at the Level. They also had a presence at this year’s Pride, supporting young people to keep safe, giving them access to water, food, sun cream and support as part of the Pride Buddy Scheme in partnership with RUOK?

Pride Buddies with the youth bus

The Participation & Advocacy team worked with the Youth Council to continue developing their campaign film and leaflet advising teachers around the ‘curriculum for life’ and best ways to deliver PSHE lessons. We also delivered a three day ‘Your Choice Programme’ for 16 young people who are looked after. The three days used youth work activities and techniques, delivered by the youth service team, such as drama, Duke of Edinburgh scheme taster sessions and graffiti art to enable the group to reflect on and express their views on how they feel the city is doing as Corporate Parents.  This work will all feed into the updated Corporate Parenting Strategy which will be completed towards the end of the year.

CPS -  Corporate Parenting Strategy, Your Choice Programme Graffiti

'Your Choice'event held over the summer

If you would like any further information on the work of the youth service, please contact Chris Parfitt chris.parfitt@brighton-hove.gcsx.gov.uk 01273 294252.

I am delighted to say that we have now received the report for both Hove Junior School and St Margaret’s Primary following their inspections in July and they both awarded Good. Congratulations to the teams at both schools. Ofsted were in St Nicholas Primary on 14th-15th of September, and St Bartholomew’s Primary on the 21st -22nd of September. I look forward to reporting on their outcomes in the next blog.  

This October Brighton & Hove City Council is promoting an anti-stigma mental health campaign. The #IAMWHOLE campaign is being launched by the NHS in partnership with the YMCA and Brighton & Hove City Council on Monday 10 October - World Mental Health Day 2016. #IAMWHOLE is an innovative new anti-stigma mental health campaign, designed to reach out to young people aged 13-25, with a range of activities which will take place from 10 October. The messages will also be shared with parents, teachers and employers through national and regional media coverage and the use of ‘Schools Against Stigma’ workshop materials. Jordan Stephens from UK hip-hop duo The Rizzle Kicks is the figurehead for the campaign.  In advance people can show support for the campaign by signing up to the #IAMWHOLE thunderclap https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/46725-iamwhole. This online thunderclap will use social media to raise awareness as messages are shared far and wide at 11am on World Mental Health Day. Please have a look.


Headteacher’s Induction Monday 12 September 
I had the pleasure of attending our Headteachers Induction this month. Each year, all new headteachers, acting heads and heads of school are invited to the authority run welcome lunch and induction session. As well as the opportunity to meet with fellow new heads across the city, the induction programme includes a number of informative sessions with key staff within our Families, Children and Learning teams.
Pinaki Ghoshal, Executive Director of the Families directorate opened the event, welcoming attendees in their new leadership roles. The first sessions outlined the key priorities, shared vision and strong partnership working across the family of schools in Brighton & Hove and we provided more details about the services and support we provide to schools. There was also a fantastic insightful session from a headteacher in the city. Feedback from everyone who attended was positive and it was a delight to see the enthusiasm, engagement and commitment of our future leaders.
A warm welcome to Kate Williams at Longhill High, John McKee at Patcham High and Mary Ellinger at Royal Spa.  We also have a couple of acting Headteachers this year: Vicky Phillips at Coombe Road Primary and Jonathan Hancock covering maternity leave at St Mary's Catholic Primary.We are also lucky enough to have new Heads of School for Balfour Primary Sally Geard and Teresa Hill, for City Academy Whitehawk Mark Church, and for Hove Juniors David Swindells and Nicole Reeves.


PACA Awards Ceremony




















On the evening of the 15 September I visited the University of Sussex to join school staff, parents and young people from PACA for their amazing annual award ceremony. Katie Scott the school principal led the event with enthusiasm clearly showing how proud she was of the success of all the young people receiving awards. It was also so pleasing to see the massive progress some young people have made and the resilience of some to strive for success.

Amaze Launch Event 

Local Authority staff, partners and parents joined Amaze to launch their fantastic new fact sheets in the Brighton & Hove Mayor's Office on Tuesday 13 September. The fact sheets cover a wide range of subjects offering advice on many different topics like short breaks, claiming benefits, sleep issues, adaptations, Special Education Needs (SEN) and many others.  If you haven't already seen just how wide ranging the topics covered are, you can download all 40 factsheets at: http://amazebrighton.org.uk/ resources/publications/fact-sheets.   Please take a look.

Amaze launch with Mayor

Welcome to our Newly Qualified Teachers 

We’re supporting over 160 Newly Qualified Teachers on induction this year and earlier this month we held welcome events for both primary and secondary NQTs (Newly Qualified Teachers). As well as the speeches from local authority colleagues, NQTs also appreciated hearing from teachers who have just finished their induction and gave advice about what to prioritise to ensure they make the most of the opportunities and support available to them. I’d particularly like to thank Clare Shucksmith and Sophie Brown from Benfield, who talked at our primary event, and Kayleigh Lambert and James Rayment from Varndean who spoke to secondary colleagues. Their advice and enthusiasm was spot on! Sharon MacKenzie and colleagues from the School Workforce Development team continue to develop their support to schools in this area and we now have a one-stop-shop for NQT support. All registrations, assessments, resources and training opportunities are now available on BEEM, which has been receiving really positive feedback from the NQTs and their induction tutors. 

Welcome event for Newly Qualified Teachers

Snow Dogs

Brighton & Hove takes the 'lead' on Snow Dogs sculptures across the city.  I hope you and your children and young people are enjoying spotting the fabulous sculptures across the city.  We have been working closely with Wild in Art and Martlets Hospice to bring ‘Snowdogs by the Sea’, a public art event to Brighton & Hove that opened last week. The event features a number of individually designed artworks based on Raymond Briggs’s Snowdog. Each Snowdog has been decorated by local artists, schools & communities – all designed to reflect and celebrate Brighton’s rich cultural offer and vibrant personality.

One of the Snowdogs

The trail encourages people to be ‘tourists in their own town’ and also invite visitors to explore, discover and celebrate the town. Integral to the event, is a city-wide education programme showcasing young people’s creativity. The schools trail comprises of medium-sized 'Snowpups' and ‘Snowdogs’ which will run alongside the main trail animating indoor spaces such as libraries, museums and art centres.  As part of this campaign, the finale will be a charity auction of the sculptures with the aim of raising over £100,000 for Martlets Hospice.

Music Across the City Over the Summer

Over 400 children and young people attended the Music Summer School this year with courses including an Infant Violin Fun Day, Wind Band, singing, music technology, and band workshops. Every course culminated in a celebration performance, with more than 20 summer school concerts taking place during July, showcasing the great progress made by these young musicians.  In early July the Brighton Youth Orchestra and Big Band visited Slovenia and Austria, performing an eclectic programme of music to appreciative audiences. Both groups include young musicians from secondary schools across the city, many of whom will go on to study at university or Music College this term.

Brighton Youth Orchestra

Early Years

Well done to My First Friends Nursery and ToyBox Pre-School which are the latest Early Years settings in the city to have achieved their Bronze award from Modeshift STARS. Modeshift STARS is a national awards scheme which has been established to recognise schools & Early Years settings that have demonstrated excellence in supporting cycling, walking and other forms of sustainable travel (see www.modeshiftstars.org). 

My First Friends and ToyBox have been working hard over the last few months on initiatives which are encouraging the children, families and staff to travel more actively, safely and sustainably to their settings. Some of the activities they have taken part in are: joining in Early Years Walking Week; creating a ‘5 Minute Walking.   Zone map’ and encouraging everyone to walk at least the last five minutes to their settings; taking the children for walks in the local environment during which they actively discuss road safety.

Their success follows on from that of the three Footsteps Nurseries in Hove, Portslade and Hollingbury who all gained their Bronze awards earlier this year. Footsteps are now working towards the Silver and Gold awards, and a number of other settings across the city are working towards achieving their Bronze Modeshift STARS awards later this year. I am excited to see that the dedication and work of our early years settings is helping a generation of children and families to embrace active and safer travel from an early age. 

Footsteps receiving their Bronze award

Apprenticeship Awareness

Over the next nine months, an apprenticeship awareness programme will be run in secondary schools across the city, promoting apprenticeships and traineeships locally. There will also be a wider network of apprenticeship ambassadors from a range of sectors who will be available to visit secondary and primary schools to promote apprenticeships.  Please contact Georgia Easteal if you would like a visit from an ambassador to talk to students, parents or teachers: Georgia.Easteal@brighton-hove.gov.uk.  Georgia is one of our apprentices, who joined the council straight from Longhill last year, and is starting her second apprenticeship with the Skills and Employment team this month.

Georgia Easteal, Apprentice

Goodbye and thank you

Gill Manton

Gill Manton is leaving the Council this week to take up a post in Croydon Council as the Head of the Virtual School. She is very much looking forward to starting her new role in Croydon with all the challenges and opportunities that brings as she wants to be able to make a difference to their lives and deliver an excellent service.  Gill started working in Brighton & Hove in January 2015 as the Strategic Attendance Lead placed in the Behaviour and Attendance Team. Gill led some fantastic work with the team to improve school attendance and keep Brighton &Hove in line with our statistical neighbours.  The ‘Every School Day Matters’ campaign captured the eye of many people including a children’s consultant at the Royal Sussex Hospital which has helped with a new multi-agency piece of work being developed with health colleagues. The campaign helped raise the profile of school attendance across the City with residents and key stakeholders.  I want to thank Gill for all her hard work here at Brighton & Hove. We wish her the very best in her new role.

Brighton & Hove’s School & College Leaders’ Conference

Building Leadership Capacity, Bramber House, University of Sussex

Wednesday 4 October 2016, 9am – 1pm 

I am looking forward to joining you all and hearing from our keynote speaker Christine Gilbert CBE who will talk about ‘leading in a school led system‘. Professor Christine Gilbert CBE was Chief Inspector, Education, Children’s Services & Schools at Ofsted from 2006 until 2011. Prior to this, she was Chief Executive of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. She joined the council in 1997 as Corporate Director, Education, having been Director of Education in the London Borough of Harrow. Christine spent 18 years teaching in schools, eight of them as a secondary school headteacher.

We will also hear from Adam Wright, Psychological Skills Mentor about how to optimise whole school performance. From the Olympic podium into the classroom, an opportunity to learn how to optimise whole school performance, through the powerful mind management model that has helped support the success of British cycling teams and other team GB sports. 

To book, please email schools.training@brighton-hove.gov.uk,  tel: 01273 293511 or you can book by logging in to BEEM http://www.beem.org.uk/Training 

Best wishes,
Jo


Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons


Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

It’s the end of another academic year!
For those of you who work in schools, colleges and other education provision it is the end of a busy academic year and for our local authority (LA) team, and wider partners it is often the time you take a well-deserved summer break. There have been many challenges and changes for us all to face this year with pressures on budgets, significant changes in central government and Brexit, among other things. However, there have been many positive developments with innovation and best practice to be proud of. We have again increased the percentage of schools that are good and outstanding and our gaps in achievement are beginning to close. We have had a successful CQC / Ofsted SEND inspection and been recognised by Ofsted for our forward thinking work developing adoption support.  We were also named amongst the top LAs in the country for tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools. There have also been numerous examples of our children and young people across the city achieving excellence in what they do.

Well done to you all and enjoy the long awaited sunshine, and for those who are taking a break enjoy your well-deserved holiday.

Schools of Sanctuary


We know from tweets and feedback that many schools marked Refugee Week at the end of June and raised awareness of what it means to be a refugee. Since Refugee Week, Coldean Primary School has been awarded a Schools of Sanctuary certificate and so congratulations to them. A Schools of Sanctuary network meeting has taken place at Elm Grove Primary School where the pupil Sanctuary Team told us about the work they have been doing in school to develop a Welcome Noticeboard (pictured) and a pack for newly arrived pupils. They also told us about the project they were leading to collect Back to School Kits for refugee children. More about their work is on this page of the Elm Grove website:

http://www.thelifecloud.net/schools/ElmGrovePrimarySchool/spaces/Children/resources/RootFolder/ChildrenHomepage.page

Inspired by the work at Elm Grove, St Luke’s Primary has since collected 38 Back to School Kits which is great news:

http://www.stlukes.brighton-hove.sch.uk/news/an-amazing-response-to-refugee-back-to-school-kit-appeal/
If you would like to know more about the Schools of Sanctuary Programme please email pshe@brighton-hove.gov.uk



I am very proud that once again this year Brighton & Hove City Council has been named among the top local authorities in the country for tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools. Stonewall has put the council in second place in its 2016 Education Equality Index. Stonewall has described the work the council does in partnership with schools as ‘consistently innovative’ in finding ways to celebrate difference, challenge prejudice and support lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans students. Stonewall also praised the work the council does jointly with local charity the Allsorts Youth Project and American Express to support schools. Pictured below is Sam Beal, Partnership Adviser Health & Wellbeing and Ryan Gingell from Allsorts Youth Project who have led and delivered so much of our good work in this area.

Thanks to school communities for all you are doing to promote equality and inclusion and challenge prejudice. If you would like support to further develop your practice please email pshe@brighton-hove.gov.uk or visit www.pier2peer.org.uk 

Children and young people with SEND in Brighton & Hove and their families are very well supported, according to the country’s two key inspection agencies.  A joint inspection carried out by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission has praised services delivered by Brighton & Hove City Council and the local NHS for their ‘unwavering focus on the overall needs of children and young people who have a special educational need or disability’. The report notes that Brighton & Hove local area puts the child or young person with SEN or disability and their family, at the centre of its vision to improve services.  We are of course delighted and would like to thank all our schools, parents, children and young people and wider parties for their contribution.

https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/content/press-release/inspectors-praise-city%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98unwavering-focus%E2%80%99-sen-children%E2%80%99s-needs 

We also end the year in line with the recently published national figure of 86% of schools good or outstanding across the city. Congratulations to those schools who have gone from Requires Improvement to Good – most recently St Margaret’s CE Primary, and to those schools that have maintained their judgements of Good or Outstanding this year.  Congratulations to Downs View who received an Outstanding last month. Hove Junior School has been inspected this month so I’ll report back on this in the next blog once we receive the report.

The Reading Party
It was a pleasure to attend a fantastic event celebrating and encouraging reading on 13 July at the cricket ground. The event marked the 6th anniversary of the Every Child a Reader (ECaR) initiative in Brighton & Hove and also sees the first children to benefit from the scheme in year 1 (2010) now going off to secondary school at the end of this term.  This gathering celebrated the successful outcomes of Families, Children and Learning’s long term strategy and investment in the program to provide intensive and high quality early intervention for children in early reading and writing. Reading Recovery early literacy intervention and ECaR are a key part of our school improvement strategy.  Thank you to all our schools who support and deliver the program and of course to the parents and children who have done so well to ensure we have seen improved outcomes year on year.

Reading Party

Chomp
Chomp provides a nutritious meal and a space to play for low income families during the summer holidays. This is aimed at those families that rely on free school meals during term time. Chomp has been going since Easter 2014, and has now served over 1,000 meals to children and their parents. We are encouraging schools to promote this with families who will benefit.
See link for more details in relation to Chomp: http://onechurchbrighton.org/what-we-do/chomp

Homewood College Leavers Assembly 
The Year 11 leavers’ assembly took place in the first week of July at Homewood College. It was a positive event full of celebrations of the achievements of the young people. All 14 students attended, with parents and carers, guests from the LA team, were also present. All of the young people have secured places in September for further education: Access to Music (media and engineering), City College, Plumpton College (Horticulture/animal care and pre apprenticeship courses) and at Northbrook 2 students are studying a Level 3 Software and Games Development). They are all looking forward to receiving their GCSE results and are expecting to do well. The assembly was coordinated by Lucy Gordon (Deputy Head) and there was an introduction by Mark Helstrip (Interim Head teacher) and a presentation by Martin Brown(Welfare Manager). A number of the children were sad to be leaving Homewood; it was a very emotional experience saying farewell. We wish all the students the very best for the future.

B&H Education Partnership
Following recent approval at Children Young People and Skills committee we have launched an engagement phase to explore the options of strengthening our partnership of Schools (including free schools and academies),  and the wider education partnership including colleges and our two universities in Brighton and Hove. From discussions at committee it was clear that there is a wide range of audiences that would want to participate in this engagement period and that they would all be interested in different aspects of the proposals. We have therefore separated the engagement period into two parts and will be engaging with parents and young people and our wider education partners early in the Autumn term.

We are aware that it is close to the end of the summer term but are keen for the consultation document and current thinking to be made public. This will also allow respondents the opportunity to consider the possible changes and respond over the summer holidays should they wish. We have extended the consultation period further into the Autumn to allow additional time for responses. We will also be holding a range of engagement meetings and small group discussions in the Autumn term, which we will be in touch about after the summer break.

The intention of this engagement exercise is to gain your views on the different approaches and ways we could work in partnership to improve outcomes. An interim report of the early response to the engagement exercise will be presented at Children Young People and Skills committee on 25th November. With a full report on all key findings and a model to go out for formal consultation to be presented to Children Young People and Skills on 9th January 2017.

Our motivation for these proposals is to ensure that we create our own future in a rapidly changing education landscape. We believe that we have a strong partnership of schools and that there is a healthy, robust relationship between the Local Authority, schools, colleges and the wider education partners. The purpose is to help sustain, strengthen and expand this partnership. This proposed approach would enable the continued journey to develop a self-improving system, through a purposeful and robust partnership that has a formal model of governance and agreed ways of working.

The engagement exercise is available via this link http://consult.brighton-hove.gov.uk/public/bhcc/schools_partnership/schools_led_partnership

Adoption Support – Attachment Aware Brighton
I was delighted that our Virtual School and Adoption Team here in Brighton & Hove were recognised in Ofsted annual report for their best practice.
“In Brighton and Hove, the strong commitment and active engagement of senior leaders from a wide range of agencies has made a significant, positive difference to the quality and extent of adoption support. A strategic steering group (including representatives from health, education, youth services, early years, early help, educational psychology, adoptive parents and voluntary agencies) has been central to building a culture of city-wide responsibility for adoption support rather than it being viewed as predominantly the concern and responsibility of the local authority adoption service. The group has focused strongly on developing an ‘attachment-friendly’ Brighton and Hove, where professionals can identify and respond swiftly and appropriately to meet adopted children’s additional needs. The city’s approach is underpinned by a support framework that is easily accessible and available to adopted children, adoptive parents and prospective adopters.”

See link for complete case study on page 47 of report: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/534008/Ofsted_social_care_annual_report_2016.pdf 

Post 16+ Skills 
On July 14th Newman College ran a year 12 Employability Careers Fair in association with Sussex Business for Schools.

The aim of the event was to enable all year 12 students to meet and work with local businesses and providers and to access information about a range of opportunities for effective education and career progression pathways. Employers such as the NHS, Hilton Metropole and Grovelands Finance were at the fair. The universities and various apprenticeship opportunities were also promoted on the day. It is hoped that in future years a wider event for schools with 6th forms can be mounted.

A number of events are being planned from September, for all schools, including primary students, to raise awareness of apprenticeship pathways and the opportunities for vocational qualifications. I will update you on this in future blogs.

Sussex Area Review
The final meeting of all 11 colleges in the Sussex review took place in May and the summary report is due at the end of July. Locally, City College are already in discussions with Northbrook College to merge and a formal consultation process will commence in September.

Apprenticeships and Supported Internships
Please look out for the schools bulletin in September which will give schools an update on the government’s apprenticeship levy which will be implemented by April 2017. For further details on how you can recruit an apprentice within your school please contact Carla Butler who is the council’s Apprenticeship Programme Officer, on 01273 291281.
We are very proud that our Human Resources & Organisational Development team coordinated the recruitment of three supported internships in partnership with Plumpton College this year. The Supported Internship programme is designed to help young people aged 16- 24 with a learning difficulty/disability get into work and become excellent employees. We want to encourage more employers to explore this opportunity and there is more information below regarding the programme, including
details about one of our supported interns, Brandon:

http://wave.brighton-hove.gov.uk/news/mainnews/Pages/SupportedinternshipBrandon.aspx

Goodbye and thank you
This is the time of year where we have to say goodbye to some of our team members and partners. I wanted to thank them formally on behalf of everyone in Families, Children and Learning for their contribution to the lives of young people and their families.

It is always sad to say goodbye to head teachers and college leaders and there are several colleagues moving on at the end of this year. My thanks to colleagues who have contributed so much:
Paula Sargent, who has done an amazing job in Patcham High School, taking it to good, and for her work in the Secondary Schools Partnership. Paula will be doing a range of work next year including more Ofsted inspections. We are also pleased to be welcoming her to our secondary partnership adviser team to do some work on school improvement.

Chris Thomson, principal at BHASVIC, is also leaving. In addition to running an outstanding college he has also contributed to the strategic development of learning in the city including the early development of the learning partnership.

Syb True is moving on from Royal Spa, an outstanding early years environment where she has ensured that our young learners have had the best possible start.

Also to heads who have been supporting other schools, Stuart McConnachie is moving on from the support for Coombe Road – taking it forward on the journey to good.

I also want to thank Mary Ellinger, Early Years Partnership Adviser, for the significant contribution she has made to raising standards and improving quality for our children and young people in Brighton & Hove. She is very highly regarded across Families Children and Learning, the council and our wider partnership. We are all really wondering how we will manage without her! However, we are absolutely delighted that we are not losing her altogether and that she will be staying in the city. She will be an amazing leader at Royal Spa and the provision will go to strength to strength.

Office moves

Teams will start to move out of Kings House on 12th August and into our new office facilities at Hove Town Hall. Most of our Education and Skills services will finish the moves over the summer, so will be working from Hove Town Hall from then. The SEN team are scheduled to move in October. It’s an exciting move for our staff with our technology being updated so that we can work more flexibly in the future. As part of the move to a unified Educational Psychology and Learning Support Service launching in September, the Educational Psychology and Community CAMHS teams are also moving out of Kings House, into a new base at Carden Primary School on 2nd September. We look forward to you all visiting us in our new working bases.

 


Brighton & Hove School Leaders’ Conference
** Save the date**

The annual Leadership conference will be held on Tuesday 4 October 2016, 9am (registration and refreshments from 8.30am) at Bramber House, University of Sussex, Falmer.

Our keynote speaker will be Christine Gilbert CBE, former Her Majesty Chief Inspector (HMCI) 2006-2011.

Head teachers, College Principals and Deputy Head teachers are all invited.

More details will be sent out soon, but please add this date to you diary.



Best wishes,
Jo


Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons


Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

June 2016

Apprenticeships 

Hannah, apprentice and care leaver

Increasing the number of apprenticeships in the city is a top priority for us. I’m delighted we have some amazing apprentices already working with us. It’s a pleasure to be able to showcase Hannah’s story in the interview below. Hannah recently spoke at the Virtual Schools Conference as she is one of the council apprentices who is a care leaver. 

My Name is Hannah and I am 21 years old. I am currently doing a Level 3 Apprenticeship in Customer Service at the registrar’s office in Brighton Town Hall.
What Sort of things does your job involve?
My job involves welcoming visitors, registering Births, Deaths, Marriages, Civil Partnerships etc. and producing legal documents (like birth certificates) in line with statutory requirements .
What did you do before your apprenticeship? 
I did a few low paying jobs, like cleaning and working in a coffee shop. With these jobs I didn’t feel like I was really going to get anywhere and I wanted a role that would help me start a career.
Why did you want this apprenticeship?
I knew I wanted an apprenticeship as soon as I left school, I knew I wanted to get into work and be able to have experience and references instead of just learning things theoretically, like I would have at college. Unfortunately I struggled to find one that I thought I would enjoy.  I came across a Level 2 Customer Service Apprenticeship at Brighton & Hove City Council. It sounded like something a little bit different and something I thought I would enjoy.  Just before the end of my Level 2 Apprenticeship, I was asked to stay on and complete a Level 3. I was really happy to accept the opportunity as it meant better job security (because it was a longer contract) a chance to build on the skills I had gained, and I could stay on with the same team I’d been working with for a year.
For you, what were the main differences between the levels?
For me the main difference in changing levels was that the coursework was a lot more work based – I could give examples in my coursework of things I had experienced at work.  I have a lot more responsibility, for example, soon I will be able to register marriages.
Would you do the next level up?
I would definitely like to do a Level 4 if I am given the chance. The study side of apprenticeships really interests me because I love being able to learn the theory behind the job I am doing, and would make me more employable.
What do you feel you have gained from your apprenticeship?
For me my apprenticeship has not only helped me start a career but also really helped my personal development too. I have much more confidence and am able to take on responsibilities.
What advice would you give to someone thinking about taking on an apprenticeship?
When you are looking for an apprenticeship, remember to go for something that really interests you, not just something that pays well. It’s really important not to get discouraged if you can’t see anything you like. There are so many options out there if you just keep looking! Have confidence in your skills and achievements; don’t underestimate what you can achieve in the future.

Brighton and Hove Education Partnership
On 6 June the Children, Young People and Skills Committee agreed our proposal to begin an engagement with school leaders, governors, parents, young people and other stakeholders regarding the co-construction of a model that formulises our City Education Partnership. The partnership’s purpose is to strengthen the family of schools and further develop our schools led self-improving system, whilst continuing to raise standards. Hilary Ferries will be taking a lead role on this work and will be contacting partners directly to ensure everyone’s view is heard. Our plan is to engage with stakeholders over the next few months and then to develop a model that will go out for consultation in the late autumn. This is an exciting opportunity to develop a deep, robust and purposeful education partnership where we all contribute to sustainable local improvement. It will also help to ensure there is clarity of purpose and roles so we make sense of the different overlapping networks and alliances operating in the new world of education regionally and nationally, so that Brighton and Hove can achieve maximum benefit and future proof our local partnership.

Award Winners – congratulations

Many congratulations to colleagues who won national awards recently. 

Sue Middleton (formerly of Dorothy Stringer) who won Teacher of the Year.

Steve Everard, Premises Manager at West Blatchington, who won staff member.

City Academy Whitehawk, voted the most improved school. 

PACA who were voted Community School of the Year. 

Dorothy Stringer, for School of the Year. 

Kathryn Coleman collecting her award
from NAHT President, Kim Johnson

Congratulations also to Kathryn Coleman (ECaR Teacher) and all the Woodingdean Primary School staff, pupils, families and community for winning a National Reading Recovery School of the Year Award 2016. The theme of Kathryn’s application was: Woodingdean Primary Builds a Reading Community. Her case study highlighted the effectiveness of a whole school approach in developing a reading for pleasure community of successful readers. Work with the local library and community was a feature of the application. The award was presented on Friday 10th June.

Here is a link to the announcement on Institute of Education UCL site here:  http://www.ucl.ac.uk/international-literacy/ilc/events/rr-awards-2016

It is great to see all these achievements celebrated and we are very proud of the individual and whole school success.

Teacher Recruitment
Recruitment of high quality teachers and leaders is a major national challenge and concern. Locally we are beginning to experience some issues too.  To respond to this a discussion took place at the primary heads meeting in the spring term and then my team commissioned a social media recruitment campaign to encourage teachers to come the city. The online social media campaign received 458 'clicks' (people that looked at it). Rachel Simmonds, Headteacher of West Blatchington Primary, will now be following this work up further by asking headteachers whether this translated into successful job applications for new teachers.  If you have any specific recruitment issues and would like to offer further ideas or suggestions then please get in touch with Rachel.

Closing the Gap
Closing the Gap in achievement for our vulnerable groups and ensuring progress for all remains our top priority across all schools and education providers in the city. Congratulations to Bevendean, St Mary Magdalen, Woodingdean and Downs View, where the recent Ofsted reports recognised the work that the schools were doing to close the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. I know most of the secondary schools are starting the ‘Challenge the Gap’ programme in September and I am looking forward to featuring more on this in my future blogs.

I am delighted to say that we have now received the report for both St Mary Magdalen Catholic Primary School and Woodingdean following their inspections in May and they both awarded Good. Congratulations to the teams at both schools.

This month there was an inspection at St Margaret’s.  We are still awaiting the report so I will feed back on this next month.

Youth and Employability Trust 
It was a pleasure to chair this month’s Youth and Employability Trust meeting on behalf of Pinaki. It was a good opportunity for me to meet our youth and employability partners and hear about the positive work that is being developed.  Our vision is to eliminate barriers to work, learning and personal development for young people and adults and the group are working on an exciting and innovative proposal to establish a Youth and Employability Trust as a possible new delivery model for youth and employability services.
This approach has the potential to provide an integrated approach to the youth and employment agenda and include independent information, advice and guidance in the form of an all-age brokerage service, supporting employers and workers / potential workers, and ensure that we have learning and skills opportunities meeting their identified needs.
This approach is bringing together the youth, skills and employability agendas identified by the Children, Young People and Skills Committee. Adopting such an model would enable us to operate in a more dynamic, entrepreneurial way optimising the benefits of both charitable and commercial models to maximise charitable funding and commercial investment and optimise resources to deliver better outcomes.

Volunteer Celebration at Roundabout Children’s Centre

Helen Cowling with volunteers at the children's centre

Volunteers from Roundabout and the Deans Children’s Centre came to a thank you lunch on 8th June as part of the Nationwide Celebrating Volunteers fortnight.  The volunteers were given Certificates of Achievements for volunteering by Helen Cowling, Children’s Centre’s Service Manager. Our volunteers are a great asset and we appreciate all the time they give to us including volunteering in groups, preparing the food bank for families, organising community boards and much more.  Thank you from the     Roundabout & Deans staff team.

Helen Cowling presenting Certificate of Achievement
to volunteer Rachael Tribe

Primary School Athletics

Aldrington Winners

Ellen Mulvihill, Head of Behaviour and Attendance, presented trophies on my behalf at the Brighton and Hove Primary School Athletics at Withdean Stadium on 22 June.  There were 48 schools and around 1600 children taking part over the both days, which is the most schools we have ever had. Ellen commented "It was a wonderful occasion to see the children fully active and participating with energy and enthusiasm in the activities. The commitment of the school staff and parents is commendable to make these fabulous events happen. When we consider how important sport and an active lifestyle will be to the health and happiness of our children, it is crucial that these days are given the attention and focus they deserve".  Well done and congratulations to Emma Greenhough and her team for a great day of school sports!

Pie Corbett: Developing Primary Writing - Schools Supporting Schools Conference

Published work

Talk for Writing, developed by Pie Corbett is powerful because it is based on the principles of how children learn and because it enables children to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally before reading and analysing it and then writing their own version.  We have been running a Brighton & Hove Talk for Writing project here in the city and on 29 June Saltdean primary hosted a celebration event.  Pie Corbett spoke, teachers from some of the schools involved led workshops to share and discuss practice and some of the fantastic writing and over 100 teachers attended.  Pie said how welll our network is developing and has attributed this is part to the commitment and support from Louise Zahra, Reading Recovery Teacher | Every Child a Reader Service Manager and Suzanne Morgan, headteacher at Saltdean.  Suzanne has been invited to apply to be a lead school nationally for this work and we hope that more schools in the city can be involved.  Congratulations to all those involved.  We can see the difference it is making to children's learning.
For more information, the link to the course page is: http://beem.org.uk/Event/30232

More Free Childcare for Working Parents of 3 and 4 year olds
I'm pleased to announce that from September 2017, working parents for three to four year olds will be entitled to an additional 15 hours a week of free childcare.  This is a massive expansion of free provision and will be very popular with parents as it could save them more than £2,500 a year in childcare costs.  Brighton & Hove's early years team has been awarded "early innovator" status with some additional funding to do project work to ensure that there will be enough childcare in the city for parents who want it.  Our online parent survey, looking into likely take-up by parents, has been open for a couple of weeks and to date has had nearly 700 responses.  We are doing more detailed consultation with specific groups of parents including those with English as an additional language, those with SEND children and people living in disadvantaged areas.  Ensuring that there is sufficient supply of childcare is a major piece of work and we are planning events for early years providers including schools and nursery classes to help them change, adapt and expand for the new offer.  There is also likely to be some captial funding available for which we will bid for later in the summer.  If you would like to know more, please contact Caroline Parker, Head of Surestart Service, on 01273 293587 or by email caroline.parker@brighton-hove.gcsx.gov.uk

Strategic meeting with Headteachers and wider education partner

I was delighted to open our Primary Headteacher phase meeting on the 28 June which was well attended. Louisa Scanlon from Public Health updated everyone on the current Public Health activities within schools, and an opportunity for 10 schools to take part in a Biosphere Project. This was followed by Rachel Sheppard and Laura Gibson from Carden Primary and Balfour Primary respectively, who talked about feedback from the PE and School Sports survey and potential pooling of school funding to pay for a sports adviser to primary schools. For more information on any aspect of this or if you are interested in participating please contact Louisa Scanlon on: louisa.scanlon@brighton-hove.gov.uk 

Sam Beal spoke about the new Disability Equality support materials: “Nothing About Me Without Me” http://www.carousel.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/NothingAboutMeWithoutMe_WebResource.pdf and also the need to ensure that if there are any increases in racist incidents, particularly since Brexit, that these are recorded properly. At this challenging time please ensure that Sam and the community safety team are informed of any issues so that they can assist you if necessary.

Martin Kaliszewski provided an excellent overview of RaiseOnline differences in data since the assessment changes. Although some elements are still unknown for EYFS/ KS1 and KS2 SATs, the overview of the format the data will appear was very useful. Unfortunately as the information Martin shared is still in a developmental phase, we do not have slides available to share at this moment - but more in depth information will hopefully be available soon. Martin did suggest that when the data is available it would be advisable for all heads to look at the breakdown results by question (to assist in skills gaps) and be aware of the national comparators as these are not necessarily comparing like for like. (e.g. in the same way that disadvantaged pupils performance locally will be compared to non-disadvantaged pupils nationally a similar set of comparisons may be used for other groups – for example boys locally to girls nationally) More on this interesting subject to follow.

The focus of our Secondary and Continuing Education Partnership meeting in the same week was SEND and funding the challenges that some of our schools are facing.  It was an opportunity to look at the data showing the number of our young people with Education, Health and Care Plans in each school and see the significant differences and discuss the possible reasons for this.  The high numbers in some schools are clearly putting major pressures on the whole school budget.  It was agreed that another session would take place in July with headteachers and college principals to look in more details at the high needs block and possible solutions.

Be the Change Programme
The grand finale took place on June 28th of the Be the Change programme, mounted by Love Local Jobs, an initiative to boost the aspirations and job prospects for young people from nine of the Brighton and Hove secondary schools. The students had the opportunity throughout the programme to work with business volunteers on six separate occasions as a mixture of day long events, one to one mentoring sessions and workplace visits.

One of the key aims of the programme was to help young people value themselves and others and to develop skills which will enable them to take responsibility for their lives and ambitions. Over 60 young people completed the programme and attended the Award Ceremony, hosted by one of the sponsors, Sussex University’s Widening Participation team. Most young people talked about gaining confidence, gaining a greater understanding about the workplace, addressing their own behaviour within the school setting and taking more responsibility for their actions.

All the business mentors talked about how proud they were of their mentees and how inspiring they had been. It’s great to hear such positive feedback from employers about our young people in the city.

Sir Rod Aldridge Cricket Centre Official Opening: 

Despite appalling weather for late June, the official opening of the Sir Rod Aldridge Cricket Centre at Brighton Aldridge Community Academy took place last night.  It was a pleasure to attend and be shown the amazing facilities on offer to young people at BACA and all our young people across the city and the wider community.  The £1.8m Cricket Centre has been developed with Sussex Cricket to provide a home for the Aldridge Cricket Academy, a base for Women and Girls' Cricket and Portslade Cricket Club.  Do get in touch with BACA and go and visit and see this fabulous resource.

Best wishes,
Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

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