Wishing you a Happy Christmas
and best wishes for the New Year
from
Jo Lyons
and the Education & Skills team
This year has certainly been a different kind of year with the pandemic bringing immense challenges to all of your work and personal lives. You have all risen to the challenges and shown great strength and resilience to support the children and families of the city. From the start of the pandemic you have worked tirelessly throughout, providing childcare, education, food, emotional support and much, much more.
I’d like to wish you all a very restful and well deserved Christmas break. We look forward with hope to 2021 where we will continue to work in collaboration and partnership through a phase of recovery and renewal. A huge and heartfelt thank you for your phenomenal contribution. Stay safe and well.
Christmas Celebrations
Despite the pandemic it’s been fabulous to see the creative and safe ways in which schools and education providers have celebrated Christmas this year, with virtual concerts, festive art displays, advent challenges, elf antics and physically distanced Christmas dinners. For example:-
Saltdean Primary School receive a visit from Father Christmas
Woodingdean Primary School pupils enjoy a festive Christmas dinner
Christmas cards by Blatchington Mill School's Community Club for residents at a local care home
Benfield Primary School’s elf getting up to mischief
Poverty Proofing the School Day: B&H COVID-19 Spring Term 2021 Response
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic 4.2 million children were caught in the grip of poverty, and with thousands more currently struggling with loss of income, the impact of poverty will be felt by many more children and families. This will be most acutely felt in schools and numbers are already increasing significantly across the city.
In response, and for a limited period, Brighton and Hove is offering a short Poverty Proofing programme in response to the pandemic to identify strategies and support that schools can employ to best aid children living in poverty. There is NO written report this time round!
The cost of this training is fully funded. To sign up or for further details please contact: linda.mcmillan@gmail.com
Youth Employability Service Festive Message
The Youth Employability Service and partner organisations have worked together to produce a cheery festive message to share with the young people they support. Please follow this link to watch more… Enjoy!
Offsite Visit Training for Undergraduates
In a first for the City, Outdoor Education Adviser, Paula Greening, was invited to give a live online lecture to 140 BA (Hons) Primary Education undergraduates at Brighton University on risk assessment and trip planning. The hour long talk last month included discussion about the many benefits of going offsite, lots of anecdotes and several nuggets of wisdom teachers across the city have shared with Paula during her ten years in post.
Paula was asked to present to the students by a former Educational Visits Coordinator and Year 3 Leader at the university who feels that students get minimal input on the value of offsite visits and how to organise them during their teacher training, despite their importance to curriculum delivery. Feedback from the students has been very positive with everyone finding the session really informative. For more details, please contact Paula at paula.greening@brighton-hove.gov.uk.
Governance Conference
Viv Grant, Integrity Coaching
The city’s governors recently came together (virtually!) for their annual conference. This year, we were really pleased to welcome executive coach Viv Grant as the keynote speaker, following a successful conference with the city’s headteachers two years ago.
The theme was ‘Keeping our Heads: The role governors can play in headteacher wellbeing’. Governors were able to spend time reflecting on the ever-changing realities of school leadership and how that impacts on leadership capacity and the wellbeing of headteachers. Governors shared their experiences about how they had supported their headteachers through the Covid times and there was lots of food for thought about strategies to use in the future. We look forward to hosting more events for governors next term.
St Bartholomew’s CE Primary had an Ofsted visit on 9 December. Ofsted inspections are suspended, however Ofsted are still making some visits to school to gather information. No judgements will be made about the school during this time, no lesson observations or work scrutiny will take place, but there will be a letter to the school confirming the discussion issued approximately 3 weeks after the meeting.
For details of the Ofsted Annual Report 2019/20 for Education, Children’s Services and Skills, please follow this link.
Thank You and Goodbye to Hilary Ferries
Hilary Ferries
We say goodbye at the end of this year to Hilary Ferries, Senior Adviser: Education Partnerships. After a number of years teaching, including a year working in New Zealand, and several years as a headteacher in West Sussex, Hilary joined Brighton & Hove City Council in January 2004 as part time primary link adviser. Since 2004, Hilary has played a number of important roles at the Council, including as Primary National Strategy Manager, Senior Primary Adviser, Head of Standards and Achievement and then more recently as Senior Adviser: Education Partnerships.
I want to take this opportunity to thank Hilary for her hard work, her commitment and dedication. She has been a very important part of our team and I know she will be greatly missed by all of her colleagues in the Education & Skills team, Brighton and Hove City Council and across the city. I would like to share with you some of the lovely comments we have received about Hilary from colleagues all across the city: “You are, and always have been, not just professional, positive and supportive, but warm and generous with it. You have faced every situation and encounter with a smile that was entirely genuine. We have all benefited from the work that you have done in our city”; “I have always appreciated your kindness, support and understanding”; “I have always respected how authentic, supportive, knowledgeable and strategic .you were”; “Thank you for all that have done for us as Heads”.
We wish Hilary all the very best for her retirement and look forward to keeping in touch with her.
Thank You and Goodbye to Headteachers
Some of our headteachers across the partnership will also be retiring or moving on to other exciting things after the Christmas break. We are sad to be losing these colleagues as they move onto their next adventures but would like to thank them for their commitment to the children, young people and families across the city and wish them all the best for the future.
Linda Dupret
Joanne Smith
Jonathan Whitfield
Jonathan Whitfield will be leaving Woodingdean Primary in December as he is moving out of the area. Jonathan has been with the local authority for a long time and before becoming the head at Woodingdean, he was part of the primary school improvement team and supported Whitehawk Primary before it became City Academy Whitehawk. We wish him all the very best for his move and for the future.
Best wishes,
Jo
Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons
Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.
