A great start to the academic year

Varndean students at work

We started the academic year on a high with a positive set of education outcomes at primary, secondary and post 16 with data at or above the national average. A great result for our education partnership across the city and credit to our teachers, support staff and young people. 

‘Poverty Proofing the School Day’

An outcome of the Fairness Commission was to offer every school in the city the opportunity to take part in ‘Poverty proofing the School Day’. The team of trained researchers from across B&H schools carried out four audits last term and are in six schools this term. The team speak to every child and young person in the school about a range of aspects and the results are analysed and compiled into a report for the school. This identifies good practice, which will be shared across the city and also raises questions for the school to consider about how to make school life better for children whose families are struggling with money. Feedback from schools that have taken part has been very positive and some of the primary headteachers will be talking about their experience at the primary headteacher meeting on 10 October where Luke from Children North East will be talking a little more about it. If you would like to take part, please contact Hilary Ferries hilary.ferries@brighton-hove.gov.uk .

Brighton & Hove School and College Leaders Conference

Pinaki Ghoshal, Director of Children’s Services, opening the B&H School and College Leaders Conference

I was delighted to join leaders from across our schools and wider education partnership for our annual School and College Leaders Conference at Sussex University. It was great to see so many leaders turn out for this important event. We had two excellent speakers: Dame Alison Peacock, from the new Chartered College of Teaching and Mary Myatt, independent consultant and author. They both gave inspirational talks about leadership. Themes included; the importance of learning from each other, not setting limits on children, professionals having a voice in education and making learning look irresistible through a high-challenge, low-threat culture, and remembering we are humans first and professional second (see BEEM for details of presentations and video links). If you are interested in planning next year’s conference with us, do let me know! 

Colleagues at the B&H School and College Leaders Conference

Supported Apprenticeships at B&H City Council 

Apprenticeships create opportunities for many people and we have been making sure everyone gets the chance to kick start their career. More flexibility allows those who have previously faced barriers to entering the world of work to get their foot on the ladder. The difficulties encountered by SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities), BAME and women candidates are more easily overcome with the possibility of part time work and greater support. Take a look at our video: https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/supportedapprenticeships 

We are holding an apprenticeship awareness session for all school, colleges and Early Years providers at Hove Town Hall on the 7th of November (see BEEM for more details http://www.beem.org.uk/Event/60300). I look forward to seeing you then. 

Brighton & Hove Education Partnership 

The Strategic Board of the B&H Education Partnership meets again on 3 October. At this meeting we will be beginning to plan for the education priorities that the board has agreed to focus on across the city. These include the recruitment, retention, development and celebration of education staff in the city, supporting the promotion of attendance, school-to-school support and improving outcomes for disadvantaged children. The aim is for all members of the education family to work together and to explore what each can contribute to make things better for children and young people in our city. The board are planning to start a half-termly newsletter and will publish our progress regularly on BEEM. 

Working with residents in Whitehawk 

Teams on the day supporting the pirate theme!

On Wednesday 20 September many services took part in an open day up at the Whitehawk Hub. This open event encouraged a wide group of residents to find out more about the services on offer to them and it provided an opportunity for teams to get to know each other better too. The day had a great atmosphere and I thank our teams for all their hard work to help make the day a success. 

Above are colleagues from our apprenticeship team, youth employability service, the supported employment team, children’s centre staff, plus colleagues talking to residents about the Providing Access to Childcare & Employment (PACE) project.

Early Years Jobs – Celebrate

Over the summer, Early Years Jobs celebrated 15 years of service, previously known as the Childcare Job Vacancy List (or JVL). The City Early Years and Childcare team produces this publication on behalf of all early years and childcare providers in and around the city and they also provide invaluable safer recruitment support and guidance. Since 2002, the advertising service has continued to be popular with both employers and jobseekers and continues to be the most up to date list of early years and childcare jobs in the city. The team celebrated with a little afternoon tea and cake party. 

The Early Years Team celebratory tea party

Here is the latest Jobs in Early Years and Childcare and webpage for those who want to find out more. 

Youth Employability Service

YES Employability Advisor Elle Dyson with Young Person Connor Day

This month I was pleased to visit a Youth Employability Service drop-in session at Whitehawk Community Hub. The YES team offers free support to young people aged 16-19 (or up to 24 if they have ever had a statement of special educational needs or an EHCP) who are not in education, employment or training and live in B&H. It was great to see Dean and Elle in action supporting the young people and hear from them first-hand the challenges the young people face and the provision for supporting them to overcome these barriers and to get into training and work. 

YES Employability Advisors Dean Coussens and Elle Dyson

youthemployabilityservice@brighton-hove.gov.uk, www.facebook.com/yesbrightonhove, @yesbrightonhove  

Ofsted are certainly back in town with Elm Grove and St Martin’s being inspected this month. Their results have not yet been announced but I look forward to sharing them with you in my October blog.

Varndean young people

And we couldn’t forget the goats, of course!

I’m delighted to announce that Varndean were graded as Good in their last Ofsted inspection. Congratulations to William Deighan and all staff, young people and governors on this outcome. Take a look at their fabulous report, which we are very proud of: http://www.varndean.co.uk/_site/data/files/documents/ofsted/Varndean%20School%2010024794%20final%20report.pdf  William Deighan, headteacher: ‘We're pleased that the report recognises that Varndean has moved up a gear in all aspects. Inspectors quickly grasped the ethos and culture of our school that drives our curriculum, our smaller schools provision and the need to see young people as individuals. As ever, more to do and excited to be already getting on with it.’

St Bartholomew’s Primary using sign language

I was pleased to hear about some of the KS2 children from St Bartholomew's Church of England Primary School who have been taking part in this amazing project involving poetry performed using sign language. I thought you might like to see this brilliantly creative film! This is ‘Do You Speak Seagull?’ by Lilian Simonsson on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/226572940

Fostering and Adoption 

Our need for loving foster homes for our looked after children is ever growing in B&H and we are committed to supporting these children to remain living within the area and continue at their local school. As many of you know, we have an ongoing  project to recruit more foster carers to enable our children and young people to be cared for within our own Service and to receive the high quality ‘wrap around care’ that they need. In order to be able to achieve this we need your help. When children and young people are placed with our in-house carers, we are in the unique position of supporting both the carers and the children, which will enable close and improved working together to support the placement overall.

Further to this, one of our key objectives for Children’s Services is to increase the number of in-house foster carers. By transferring from an IFA to Brighton & Hove, we can save over £20,000 per annum, per placement.  Attached is a link to the website, including blogs about the experiences that our foster carers have as part of B&H Fostering Community: https://www.fosteringinbrightonandhove.org.uk  and also a video that brings fostering to life. You’ll hear from our foster carers and one of our care leavers too. https://youtu.be/RNV6hPlwK5g

We need your help to spread our message far and wide, so please do talk to your teams, friends and families about fostering and invite them to the monthly fostering information sessions held around the city. For more information visit the website: https://www.fosteringinbrightonandhove.org.uk or call 01273 295444.

Royal Visit to Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital

Princess Alexandra has visited the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital. Whilst there, the Princess spent some time in our hospital schoolroom, where she met Ann Diver and Suzanne Cowie, two of the staff in our Access to Education team who provide education for children and young people during their stay in hospital. It was a great opportunity for the team to showcase their work.  

Ann Driver (Hospital Teacher) with the Princess                          Suzanne Cowie (Hospital Teacher) with the Princess

Homewood College get a makeover

Two National Citizen Service teams joined forces on a huge job to renovate and decorate this local school which was in need of some attention. They achieved an astounding amount of work - especially with their clearing of undergrowth and bushes to restore a half-made bike track, laying gravel to make it functional for the students of Homewood. They painted inside corridors, classrooms and hallways and cleared gardens and planted flowers. They made and painted a bench and table to place near the bike track and generally lifted the atmosphere creating a fresher feeling to the environment for students and teachers returning after the summer holiday. Thank you and well done. 

The renovation team receiving their awards

Welcome to our Newly Qualified Teachers (NQT) 

Mark Storey (Head of Educational Standards &Achievement) welcoming NQTs             Aaron O’Shaughnessy from Hove Junior    

Earlier this month it was good to meet our NQTs at our annual welcome events at the University of Brighton and Newman College. NQTs were given valuable information about all the support available during their induction year from Sharon MacKenzie and the School & Governance Development Team. As well as the speeches from LA colleagues, it was great to see so many second year teachers providing input at the events, giving top tips about how to survive and thrive in the first year of teaching. Our NQT induction service has now been using BEEM as a one-stop shop for NQT support for over a year now, with all registrations, assessments, resources and training opportunities available in one place. We’ve had some very positive feedback from schools who have appreciated this streamlined system to help support them in their roles of monitoring their NQT progress. We hope NQTs have a successful and rewarding year!

Lily Peacock and Nina Scerri from Benfield Primary                                  Mark Holdaway, Senior SEN Specialist Teacher

Welcome, Goodbye and thankyou  

I was joined by Pinaki Ghoshal (Director of Children’s Services) to welcome our new and acting headteachers and heads of school at our induction this September and support them all in their new roles. 

Welcome to our new headteachers Hildi Mitchell at Downs Infants and Alister Sutherland at Patcham Junior. 

Welcome also to our new Acting heads of school Joyti Azad and Sarah Kirby at Mile Oak, and the acting headteacher Rachel Kershaw at Cottesmore St Mary, and to Tim Self as the Acting headteacher at BHPRU. 
We also have new interim staff in our Virtual School: Gill Hibbert, our new Education Safeguarding Officer and Jill Dyson, interim Virtual School Lead. 

I would also like to welcome Mark Storey as the new Head of Educational Standards and Achievement. Mark has already been working with many of us as Headteacher for the Virtual School over the last 3 years and we are delighted that this new role will strengthen this partnership working.

Communication 

So many schools and education providers in our B&H Education Partnership are now using twitter as one way of communicating information and sharing news and best practice. If you are not yet signed up and want some help to get started just let me know.

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons
Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.