It’s been another challenging term responding to the pandemic but all staff in our education settings have risen to the challenge and gone that extra mile to meet the needs of children and young people and families. I’d like to thank you all for your amazing efforts within your settings and across the city. I do hope you get a well deserved break at some point over the Easter period.
World Book Day at Stanford Infants
I was so pleased to hear about the creative and imaginative ways schools have been celebrating World Book Day this year. Stanford Infants arranged a fantastic day of activities enjoyed by the whole school community, both in school and at home via the learning platform and live Zoom sessions with each class.
Staff and pupils dressed up as book characters and activities included scavenger hunts to find characters in books, making puppet theatres, singing along with the official World Book Day rap, taking part in author and illustrator “how to” sessions and sharing stories together. It has been wonderful to see how the whole school came together virtually to celebrate their love of reading.
Stanford Infants celebrate World Book Day
Foster Carer Conference
The Virtual School in conjunction with Fostering, Placements & Permanence hosted their annual Foster Carer Conference on the 18 March and it was a resounding success. Although the conference had to be take place virtually thus year, engaging and informative keynote presentations were given by Kit Messenger on ‘The Empowerment Approach: A Curious Approach to Helping Children Grow’ and Lisa Anderson on ‘Emotional regulation and avoiding the ‘happiness trap’’.
Further presentations included a Brighton & Hove foster carer couple talking about their experiences as carers, an enlightening discussion on being curious about race and culture and a wonderful section on wellbeing, self-care & resilience delivered by Claire Haines & Darren Muirhead. Amongst the very positive feedback from the event, one attendee said Kit’s keynote presentation was the best thing she had seen in 20 years - so be sure to catch Kit at the Virtual School Summer Conference on 24 June! Well done to Virtual School team and Fostering, Placements & Permanence on organising such a successful event.
Brighton & Hove Family Learning Free Online Workshops
Brighton & Hove Family Learning is offering free online workshops where families can learn together or parents and carers can gain skills to benefit the whole family. These short courses are fun, relaxed and run for small groups, with no grading or exams. Courses include family first aid; becoming a reader; building children’s resilience; starting out/moving on with phonics and supporting a teenager with anxiety.
For more details and dates, visit: Family learning online classroom (brighton-hove.gov.uk) or email Family.Learning@brighton-hove.gov.uk
The Specsavers Sussex Winter School Games has seen an amazing 45 schools and 3,621 students in Brighton & Hove taking part in the Winter Sports Challenges. The Games, which ran for 4 weeks during February, saw Team Brighton and Hove came 3rd out of the 9 Sussex School Games areas.
Well done to Balfour Primary School and Patcham High School who had the most students participating over the 4 weeks. There will also be more ‘virtual’ competitions & festivals happening in the Summer along with the Primary PE and School Sport Network meeting on Thursday 29 April 3.45-5.00pm. If you would like any further information please contact Emma Greenough emma.greenough@brighton-hove.gov.uk
Above & Beyond
Zoe McGuigan, Justine Harvey and Rachael Durneen
Brighton & Hove Buses have been on a mission to find and celebrate the unsung heroes of Brighton. Local community groups and members of the public were invited to nominate the people going ‘Above and Beyond’ every day with photos of 24 community champions appearing on bus sides with a little bit about their amazing achievements on panels inside. The buses are on route 1, between Mile Oak, the city and Whitehawk.
Congratulations to Hertford Infant and Nursey School teachers Zoe McGuigan, Justine Harvey and Rachael Durneen who have been included in this.
Brighton-based children’s theatre company Freckle Productions are kindly sharing their popular stage adaptation of Stick Man, based on the book by Julia Donaldson with illustrations by Axel Scheffler to Brighton & Hove school pupils to stream for free from Tuesday 30 March – Wednesday 7 April. Filmed at the production’s final live performance at the Rose Theatre Kingston in December 2020, this made-for-TV version of the show was initially created for families to view at home over Christmas. However, with the extraordinarily tough start to the year, Freckle were keen to give something back to their hugely supportive audiences in Brighton, and hope that Stick Man will be an hour of fun for families this Easter.
To access the stream, please click the following link and enter the password when prompted:
https://vimeo.com/freckleproductions/stickman-brighton Password: Fam1lyT
EMAS (Ethnic Minority Achievement Service) Home Learning Project
The EMAS REAL (Raising Early Achievement in Literacy) Project ended last week with a virtual celebration sharing stories, photos and videos sent in by parents of their children playing and learning. 72 children received a delivery of a play pack based on the Very Hungry Caterpillar, containing lots of exciting ideas and activities to support talk, sharing books, environmental print and mark making.
The project, which ran in 15 different languages, aimed to encourage every family to look at what they do every day with their child and see how they can make it a learning experience. Bilingual assistants were on hand to translate and there was also a bespoke programme adapted to families with children with SEND. At the end of the project the children received a letter inviting them to attend a hat party on Zoom. The children had the experience of receiving and posting a letter. The project ended with another delivery of a bookstart pack, card to make their party hat and a certificate for parents which they opened together at the Zoom party with caterpillar themed healthy snacks.
Some really positive feedback was received from families including:
“I really enjoyed every activity and session. I use the ideas every day. Nursery have really noticed a difference in my son. We have a much closer relationship now and his behaviour has improved.” Arabic
“I learned that you can learn with your child through play, on walks, practically everywhere, and you can use anything for learning. You don’t need to make up anything specific as your child will have the greatest ideas.” Polish
Congratulations to Richard Enticknap
Congratulations to Richard Enticknap a Primary teacher at the Central Hub Brighton working with students at risk of exclusion and with EHCPs for social, emotional and mental health difficulties on recently winning a PACC award for his work.
Richard was nominated by a parent who said of his involvement:
“Since Richard has been working with my son he has undergone a great transformation…. He worked with him all the way through the lockdowns, providing routines, teaching him social skills, building his confidence, communication skills, ensuring the right environment for learning whilst meeting his other needs. My son now has friends, he leaves for school happy every day for the first time in his life.”
Young Carers Action Day
Young Carers Action Day took place on 16 March 2021 to raise awareness of young carers and the issues that are important to them. Young carers are people aged 6-18 who provide unpaid support to family or friends who couldn't manage without this help. This can mean caring for a relative, partner or friend who is ill, frail, disabled, or has mental health or substance misuse problems.
They often miss out on fun activities and seeing friends, don’t do as well at school as their peers and are more likely to have issues with school absence and emotional or mental health needs. The pressure on young carers has only increased since the pandemic.
The council and partner organisations currently support just over 350 young carers in Brighton & Hove, but the actual numbers are much higher. To mark Young Carers Action Day the council has pledged to work with The Young Carers Project, schools, other services and agencies in the city to find these hidden or unknown young carers ensuring that their voices are heard and their needs are understood. For further information about the support available to young carers in the city, please visit www.thecarerscentre.org,
or contact the Carers Centre on 01273 746222.
Ofsted completed three additional remote monitoring inspections at Moulsecoomb Primary School, Balfour Primary School and Homewood College.
Balfour and Moulsecoomb have reports now published and read incredibly positively. We are really proud of the improvement both schools are making and the incredible work done during the pandemic. In both cases Ofsted have said “Leaders and those responsible for governance are taking effective action to provide education in the current circumstances”.
We are expecting Homewood College’s letter to be published very soon.
Goodbyes
We say goodbye to a number of colleagues across Brighton & Hove this month.
William Deighan is retiring at the end of the term as Headteacher of Varndean School as the city’s longest serving secondary headteacher. William has been an inspirational leader, holding high expectations for pupils and staff and leading Varndean to great success over the years. Willam will be very much missed by all who have worked with him. We wish him a very happy and well deserved retirement. Gareth Hughes will be taking over as Acting Headteacher next term.
Carmel Hughes
Carmel Hughes, Headteacher at St John the Baptist, is retiring at the end of this term after delaying her retirement in order to support the school through the last challenging year. Carmel has been the headteacher at the school for over a decade and has dedicated herself to providing the best education for the children at the school. She will be greatly missed by the school and local community. We wish her the very best for her next adventure. Tina Davidson, Deputy Headteacher will be acting up as Headteacher for the coming term.
Jackie Whitford will be leaving her position as Advisor for Traveller Education at the end of the month. Jackie has worked for over a quarter of a century to ensure that Gypsy, Roma, Traveller families could access their rights to good housing, education and health and was pivotal in highlighting the need for and ensuring for the development of a permanent Traveller site in Brighton and Hove. We want to thank Jackie for her huge contribution and wish her well for the future.
Best wishes,
Jo
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