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.
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.
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| 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.
Office moves
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.
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