June has been a bright, sunny month and it’s been a great opportunity to increase the amount of outdoor learning, as well as preparing for all those sports days coming up. It’s also been a challenging time with SATs and exams for many children and young people, and as always Ofsted continuing to inspect the city’s schools. It is not long to go now for our children and young people, teachers, school and college staff before they start their well-deserved summer break. However, we do still have 23 more days of opportunity to engage in some more outstanding teaching and learning.
School and College Leaders Business Meeting
I was pleased to open the School and College Leaders Business Meeting on Tuesday 9 June and hear from the voices of community members and students about the difference that schools can make to the wellbeing of children and young people. For example Louisha, who is pictured skipping with her friends, explained how her school, St Luke’s Primary, removes barriers so that she can access the same quality of school experience and learning as all other pupils. Louisha along with other people with impairments will feature in a locally developed Disability Equality DVD that will be disseminated in September.
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| Louisha and friends at St. Luke's Primary |
Ryan from Allsorts Youth Project and two students from Blatchington Mill School joined us to talk about what makes a Trans inclusive school and the challenges faced by Trans children and young people and their families. The Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit is available on Pier2Peer. http://www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupDownloadFile.asp?GroupId=1244399&ResourceId=4978569
It was an inspiring and challenging event and the good practice shared by a range of schools and colleges provided practical ways forward for other schools. In the feedback one Headteacher commented:
“A really well planned mixture of practical advice (Ramadan), inspiring young people, the academic - social context.”
Ofsted - Children’s Services
We were pleased to receive our Children’s Services Ofsted inspection report following our four week inspection. The full inspection report is now available to look at on the Ofsted website.
Ofsted found that Children’s Services in Brighton & Hove have made improvements since our last inspection and we have no serious failings that leave children at risk of harm, but we still require improvement to be rated as ‘good’.
Ofsted found;
• The leadership of Children’s Services is good and we have useful performance and quality assurance processes to drive these improvements.
• Our services, advice and support for our looked after children, those being adopted and those leaving our care are good.
• When children are at risk of harm, social workers recognise it and quickly take action to protect them.
• Social workers, police and other professionals in the city work well together to know which young people are at risk of being sexually exploited and ensure they take the right actions to protect them.
• Our social workers know the children they work with well.
• Children who are disabled have social workers who understand their needs and are good at assessing with them what services will best help them and their families.
• Our new Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) is effective.
In a separate review, Ofsted rated the city’s independent Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) arrangements as ‘good’.
The Virtual School
I was particularly pleased to read in our recent Ofsted report so many positives about the work of our Virtual School; with recognition of its ambition for its children and the positive changes it has made recently such as introducing new PEPs and broadening its remit to focus on the needs of adopted children, which although new appear to be having success.
The Ofsted report said;
• The education of children looked after is supported well by a strong Virtual School.
• The Virtual School provides good support and oversight taking individual needs into account.
• Children in care do well at school, have good attendance and do not get excluded very often.
• The Virtual School takes a strong, proactive role and provides good support to all children who have been adopted, as well as those who are subject to a special guardianship order.
• There is effective joint working between schools and social workers
Secondary and Continuing Education Partnership
It was great to join the Secondary and Continuing Education Partnership Meeting this month, where creative and cultural learning and engagement was the focus. Peter Chivers (Head of Music & Arts) and members of the Our Future City team presented on the progress to date on the development of a number of 10 year impact goals. These goals have been developed over the last few months through a process that has involved over 900 colleagues and young people.
We were also pleased to hear a presentation from colleagues at Artswork, the Arts Council England Bridge organisation for the region, alongside a thought provoking item that focused on closing the gap by providing a rich and diverse cultural offer, from board member Richard Bradford (Headteacher at Dorothy Stringer School). This was followed by a challenging debate and sharing of ideas of how we can further develop our offer for children and young people.
For more information please visit the Our Future City website at www.ourfuturecity.org.uk or follow on Twitter @OurFutureCityBH
New Learning and Employment and Skills Partnership
I was very pleased to attend the newly formed Learning, Skills and Employment Partnership on 8 June. Our learning and skills agendas are key to the city’s future and it was good to see the coming together of partners from across these two important areas. The purpose of this group is to raise aspirations and achieve the best possible outcomes for all our future citizens in terms of learning, skills development, business growth and employment opportunities in the city.
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| Nick Hibberd and Hilary Ferries presenting at the Learning, Skills and Employment Partnership Meeting |
We successfully brought together representatives and stakeholders from schools, colleges and key organisations to lead the Learning, Skills, Employment and Business Growth agenda on behalf of Brighton & Hove Connected. Through working together more effectively I am sure we can improve outcomes for young people and I do hope that our representative headteachers will attend and lead with us.
It was our annual LSCB away day this week where I joined colleagues and partners from across the city to review our work over the past year. It was an opportunity to celebrate the good Ofsted judgement the LSCB received and look at the outcomes of this year’s learning reviews and areas we need to improve.
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| Graham Bartlett, Chair of LSCB |
We spent the afternoon in challenging debate agreeing priorities for the coming year that will form part of our new business plan and ensure we tackle safeguarding issues as a strong city partnership.
Attachment Aware Brighton & Hove
On Tuesday 23 June I attended the Virtual School conference at the AMEX stadium with over 100 staff from schools. The key focus of the day was raising awareness of attachment issues and how it can affect children in care and those adopted. Our excellent key note speaker Louise Bomber (Attachment Support Teacher & Therapist) taught us all some practical techniques that schools can use to best support these children.
The conference also included a session by the Children in Care Council, our Educational Psychology Service and Mark Storey (Headteacher of Virtual School) and Rob Caddick (Key Stage 2 & 3 Advisor) from the Virtual School. It was refreshing to hear from Cottesmore Primary School on the fabulous work they have been doing to meet the needs of our children in care and adopted children. During the conference I was delighted to launch our adoption passport, a useful resource to support parents of adopted children and our school staff and other professionals http://www.fosteringinbrightonandhove.org.uk/content/adoption-support-passport.
Feedback was excellent and there is real enthusiasm that is further growing to support these children and young people in a truly 'Attachment Aware Brighton'.
Child Friendly City
I was very excited to meet with a steering group of colleagues from across Children’s Services to begin to look at the concept of ‘Child Friendly City’ for Brighton & Hove. We looked at the framework of criteria issued by Unicef for defining and developing a Child Friendly City and the work Leeds have done and benefits they have discovered. The framework identifies the steps to build a local system of governance committed to fulfilling children’s rights. The group is bringing together the work that is already being done across the city and identifies any gaps. You will be hearing more as we engage the city in this initiative to make Brighton & Hove an even better place for all our children and young people to grow up.
This means we end June with no schools in the city judged as inadequate. Ofsted have just published data that shows that of 31 March, 82% of schools nationally were judged to be good or outstanding. Our most recent figure is 84%.
I’m sure you are all aware there are changes to the Ofsted framework in September which has now been published https://www.gov.uk/changes-to-education-inspection-from-september-2015. Please take a look.
All exams and testing have finished now and the results are beginning to come in. I took the secondary forecasts report to my management meeting this month and was pleased to see the positive predictions. I look forward to the real results in August.
School Governance
It has been really good over the year to have met regularly with governors in a range of different contexts. This has given me the opportunity to talk and gain their perspectives on a range of strategic matters regarding schools and leadership, and also provide support and challenge so we can raise standards.
I met with the Secondary Chairs’ of Governors this month, which was a follow up to our positive and focussed meeting in the Autumn Term. We had a wide ranging discussion on school places and budgets and predictions of outcomes. It was good to hear from this group of governors the positive impact that partnership working is having on schools, and how the voice of governors is being strengthened through their representation on various city-wide bodies.
I was sorry to miss this month’s Governance, Strategy and Partnership Meeting; the last one of this academic year. However, I was pleased to hear they found presentations on assessment, children in care and adopted children and British Values helpful and that there was challenging debate. My thanks to Rose Wisdom (Partnership Advisor - School Governance & Leadership) and her team who organise this so well.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our governors from across the city for the time and commitment they have given to our schools this year.
Celebrations
Momentum is an excellent and well regarded mentoring scheme created by the University of Brighton and has been running for over 10 years. Students who may need support, particularly those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, who have a disability or who may be lacking in confidence, are paired with mentors to exchange knowledge with a view to improving their confidence and employability, and to enhance their prospects of career success.
I am delighted to announce Rose Wisdom (Partnership Advisor - School Governance & Leadership) was selected to receive an award from a very impressive cohort of mentors and was praised for her flexibility and selfless attitude.
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| Rose Wisdom with her mentoring award from Momentum |
Congratulations also to Rachel Simmonds (Headteacher, West Blatchington Primary), who has just been awarded Headteacher of the Year and to West Blatchington Primary for securing the prize of School of the Year. This was happy reading in the press and really good to see the excellent leadership and drive for improvement recognised at this school.
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| Rachel Simmonds with pupils from West Blatchington Primary |
The Importance of Apprenticeships
On Thursday 2 July the council is bringing together training providers, employers and information advice and guidance professionals at an apprenticeship matching event. It’s a great opportunity for young people (aged 16 - 24) to meet training providers offering live apprenticeship vacancies in Brighton & Hove.
There will be advisors on hand to meet young people and find out about their current situation and what they are looking for. They will let young people know what kinds of vacancies are available so they can speak to the right training providers and employers. Find out more about our apprenticeship matching events online or contact Shiromi Cabraal on 01273 290735 or email Apprenticeships@brighton-hove.gov.uk.
Best wishes,
Jo
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.
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