August 2015

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.