Outcomes are improving
August has been the time for holidays when many of us
have taken that well deserved break. I managed to have a lovely two week break
with my family in the sun in Andalucía. It was very hot and a real opportunity
to regroup as a family of four and build those bonds of attachment. We all had an
amazing time, even if a little exhausting! I hope you all managed to get away
or have a good break away from work and you are feeling refreshed ready for the
academic year ahead.
It has also been the time when our young people receive
their exam results whether it be A/AS levels or GCSEs and a busy time for
schools, colleges and the council analysing and collating the results and
planning the strategic work needed in the coming academic year to respond to
the findings to and improve outcomes.
Exam results 2015
I’m delighted to be able to write that this year we have
improved education outcomes across all phases of education in the city, from
early years to A-Level. You will have read in my July blog about our 2015
improvement in early years and primary results showing a strong trend of improvement
over time.
The DfE have released this
week the provisional national Primary data. I am delighted that attainment in
Brighton & Hove is good. The percentage of children achieving L4+ in reading
writing and Maths is up by one percent (82% from 81% in 2014). This is two points above
the English average and three points above the statistical neighbour average. Brighton
& Hove's, result is above East and West Sussex and all of our statistical
neighbours with the exception of Bath and NE Somerset who also averaged 82%.
A-Levels
The rate of A-level students passing with good grades in
Brighton & Hove has also increased, for the fourth year running, with a
number of schools and colleges delivering their best ever results. Provisional
results suggest that the city has outperformed the national average by almost
six percentage points, with 59.2% of A-level entries achieving A*-B grades.
This figure is also nearly six percentage points above last year’s total of
53.5%. The overall pass rate for A-levels in the city this year is 98% and slightly exceeds the national figure. For the seven schools and colleges offering
A-Levels there is an improving trend across the city with five of the seven matching
or exceeding the national figure. Well done all.
GCSE
There has also been a big overall rise in GCSE
performance this year. Provisional results suggest that city-wide the
percentage of pupils achieving A*-C in English is above the national average at
73% against 65% nationally. In Maths the percentage of pupils achieving A*-C is
also above the national average at 69% against a national figure of 63%. The
‘benchmark’ figure for the proportion of students achieving 5+ A*-C grades
including English and Maths has risen by six percentage points from
54% in 2013-14 to 60% this year. Several schools are reporting seeing their
best ever results. The headlines from some of our schools that are particularly
positive; PACA achieving 60% five or more A-C grade GCSEs including English and
Maths, up by nine percentage points, Dorothy Stringer improving by eight percentage
points up to 73%, Blatchington Mill up by 10 percentage points up to 70%, Patcham improving by 12 percentage points, up to 59% and Varndean improving by 10 percentage points, up to 58%.
Over the past two years as a LA we have been focusing on
leading much needed work in Maths. This work has included lesson sharing
projects, network meetings and ‘Maths Meets’, as well as increased partnership
and sharing best practice involving schools and universities. I am therefore
delighted with some of the outstanding Maths results in the percentage of
pupils achieving A-C (82%) at Dorothy Stringer, Cardinal Newman (79.5%) and
Blatchington Mill (76.7%). This is the type of collaborative work I hope we will
continue across the partnership going forward. Well done to all the young
people, teachers and parents, we are very proud of these achievements.
In the autumn we will begin to unpick further details of
the data and look more closely at the gaps in achievement we have, particularly
for our vulnerable groups. Although I am
delighted outcomes are moving positively in the right direction we have much
more to do to close the gap for these students and ensure all are prepared with
skills and qualifications needed for adult life.
Goodbye and thank you
 |
| Michael Nix |
In September we will say goodbye to Michael Nix our Head
of Education, Planning & Contracts. Michael is retiring after many years’
service in local government and the Learning Skills Council and we wish him a
joyous retirement. He will be greatly missed by colleagues here and across the
wider partnership. I would like to thank Michael for his positive contribution
to learning and education in the city and in particular his recent work moving
forward our school organisation strategy.
Also leaving the council is Gill Meyne, our Family
Learning Programme Manager, as she moves on to pastures new. She will be greatly
missed by colleagues here and across the adult learning partnership, we thank Gill
for her positive contribution to family and community learning in the city.
New headteachers and principals starting in September
I would like to wish all our new headteachers success for
September and hope they enjoy their new roles:
- Adam Sutton as acting headteacher at Moulsecoomb Primary
- Alex Wingham as acting headteacher at St Martin’s CE Primary
- Ashley Harrold at Blatchington Mill
- David Hulbert as interim headteacher at Homewood College
- Joanne Smith at Rudyard Kipling Primary
- Karen Harrison at Peter Gladwin Primary
- Katie Scott at PACA
- Maddie Southern as acting headteacher at Hove Junior
- Martyn Giddens at Bevendean Primary
- Rob Neidermayer-Reed at Hove Park
- Wendy King at the Bilingual School
It also gives me great pleasure to inform you that City
College Brighton & Hove has appointed Sharon Collett as their new Principal
and Jon Rollings as their Chief Operating Officer. They join Nick Juba their
new CEO designate and these latest appointments now complete their Executive
Team. A new era of educational and
training excellence for City College, Brighton and the wider city region.
I know you will be, eager to meet and start work with
them all.
We also wish well three of our experienced headteachers;
- Shaun Collins who will be leading the new Brunswick Primary School as Davigdor and Somerhill come together from September
- Emma Lake who will be formally leading Hangleton Primary, as the two ‘new schools’ have come together, and Benfield Primary
- Gayle Adam as executive head at the CDP Federation
Other new appointments
Helen Emerson will be seconded from her substantive post
at Dorothy Stringer School to the LA Team on a part time basis this year
working closely with Sam Beal (Partnership Adviser, Health and Wellbeing). I am sure you will welcome Helen into this
role and as before the key focus for her work will be to work with national
organisation Mentor to review and develop secondary
school provision of drug, alcohol and tobacco education as part of our PSHE
work.
 |
| Rachel Carter |
Rachel Carter will be taking up the new Post 16 Learning
and Skills Partnership Adviser role. Rachel will be joining the Standards and
Achievement team, from September 2015. Rachel has been a governor at St
Andrew’s Primary School for seven years and has worked on projects with schools and
businesses locally, and the university of Brighton's profitnet programme, over
the last 10 years. Prior to that Rachel had a long career in the BBC, both in
the public service and commercial divisions. Rachel will be working across the
partnership to improve our outcomes for post 16 young people and drive forward
much needed changes needed in relation to learning and skills.
Sport and PE in Schools
Keep an eye out in September for this brand new
initiative to help support sport and PE in schools is to be piloted by Sky in
Brighton & Hove. Launching on the 14 September, the Sky Take Back
initiative will provide free sports kit and equipment to local schools who help
recycle redundant Sky Boxes and broadband routers. Schools collecting these boxes will be able
to exchange each box for Sky Reward Points which can be used to purchase a wide
range of free sports kit and equipment. Full details will be sent out to schools in September via the bulletin
along with full information as to how we intend to develop and improve our
whole approach to children’s sport across the city.
Post 16 - Employer skills task force
It is great news that a new Employer Skills Task Force
has been formed by Brighton & Hove City Council and local businesses with
an aim of establishing thousands of apprenticeships for young people in the
city. Sussex County Cricket Club chief executive Zac Toumazi is the Chairman
of the Employer Skills Task Force. It is
hoped that the Task Force will boost the number of apprenticeships commencing
in the city. I look forward to updating you further on developments and success
of the task force in future blogs.
Pride 2015
 |
| Leaflets created Blatchington Mill School |
August is the time of fun and festivals and this year’s
Pride was a great success and included significant involvement from the city’s
Children’s Services and partner agencies. Prior to Pride, ru-ok? staff created
leaflets which were issued to schools across the county. Enthused by the
leaflets Schools got pupils to engage with the importance of Pride and produce
their own inspiring leaflets. The photo captures the leaflets developed at
Blatchington Mill School.
In previous years police and St John ambulance staff have
ensured that such children and other revellers were kept safe; this year their
work was assisted by the creation of the “Pride Buddies”. At the entrance to
Preston Park a Youth bus, which was stationed there, which received a constant
stream of young visitors requesting water, sun cream, biscuits or a seat in the
shade where they could recover from their overindulgence. Most young people
kept themselves safe and appeared to have a great time. Thank you to Children’s Services staff who worked closely with the police to provide children and young
people with support outside of the park areas.
Every school day matters – Every lesson counts!
I am sure you will all agree that encouraging full school
attendance, reducing persistent absence and the number of holidays taken in
term time should be a top priority for us all. I’m really pleased with the
partnership working that is taking place between the LA team led by Gill Manton
(Attendance Co-ordinator), Ellen Mulivhill (Head of Behaviour and Attendance)
and our schools.
Earlier this year, we introduced a new Code of Conduct,
which is the provision for administering Fixed Penalty Notices for non-school
attendance across the city. The launch included supporting documents aiming to
achieve widespread consistency, understanding and an improvement in school
attendance which requires a strong partnership approach. In addition to this,
we have put in place the school attendance clusters that are beginning to gather
momentum locally and this method is proving to be a popular approach amongst
school staff. An important part of our work includes the new Education
Investigation Service which includes Fixed Penalty Notices, Interviews under caution and prosecutions. I am pleased to say that we are now fully compliant
with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the guidance from the
Department for Education. We are also keeping a very close eye on our school
attendance figures as we are determined to continue to support all schools to
achieve the very best attendance. The local data gives us an initial indication
that the persistent absence figures have improved for 14/15 against Government
data for 13/14. I look forward to seeing further improvement.
Exclusions
We have received the national and statistical neighbour
results for the 2013/14 period on the number of permanent exclusions and fixed
term exclusion. The results show our performance against the 152 LAs nationally
and I am pleased to report we have made significant progress and are now 9th out of 152 for our performance relating to low permanent exclusions. This is a
real improvement and now seems to be consistently low showing that our work to
develop an effective and responsive behaviour partnership (BAP) is making a
real difference. Well done to all involved across primary, secondary and
special.
The data on fixed term exclusion is less positive.
However there has also been significant improvement in our work to reduce fixed
term exclusions at secondary and we will continue this work with headteachers
and BAP in the autumn. Our primary fixed term exclusions data is currently more
of a cause for concern. I am therefore looking to open a dialogue with headteachers at our first meeting in September so we can work together to begin
to address this.
Hass Yilmaz
 |
| Hass Yilmaz |
It is with great sadness that I inform you that Hass
Yilmaz our Principal Educational Psychologist passed away on Thursday 13 August.
His wife Tee said that he died peacefully at home surrounded by her and their
children as he wanted. However those who have had contact with Hass throughout
his illness will know how resolutely thankful, cheerful and philosophical he
was, grateful for all life had given to him and keen to reassure everyone that
he was coping OK with the prognosis. He was a remarkable colleague and friend
to so many who will be fondly remembered and missed.
Headteachers Induction
As we have 11 changes of headteachers in the city in
September and we have revised our headteacher induction programme and will be
looking to develop, in partnership with headteacher colleagues, a programme
that will support their personal development and assist in improving outcomes
in the schools across the city. Leadership of schools is vitally important to
the success of our children and young people and we need to make sure we value
our leaders and provide them with maximum support and challenge. The first
induction session is taking place on 15 September 2015.
Leadership Conference
I am looking forward to seeing headteachers, college
principles and other senior school leaders at our Leadership Conference on 2 October 2015 entitled ‘Inspirational Leadership’ and I look forward to
welcoming Tim Brighouse (former chief commissioner for schools) and David
Cameron (Director of The Real David Cameron Ltd) as speakers. Almost 100 people
have already signed up so far – please contact Yasmin Jenner
(schools.training@brighton-hove.gov.uk) to book your place.
Other dates for your diaries
25 September 2015 Secondary and Continuing Education Partnership meeting, 12:30-2:30pm (location TBC)
13 October 2015 Primary Headteacher meeting (AM, exact timing
and location TBC)
03 November 2015 GSP Meeting, 6:30-8:30pm, City College Brighton
& Hove
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.
