Happy Christmas

 

Wishing you a Happy Christmas

and good wishes

for the New Year

 from

 Jo Lyons

and the

Education & Skills team

As we approach the end of term, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas and new year.  Thank you for your ongoing commitment and dedication to the children, young people and communities of Brighton & Hove. This has been another extremely challenging year but there have been many successes and I have been so impressed by the strength, resilience and leadership you have shown to support the children and families of the city.  I’d like to wish you all a very restful and well deserved break and look forward to working with you in the new year.

Hove Junior School

Congratulations to Hove Junior School for achieving Inclusive School Award with Flagship status.  Well done to Executive Headteacher Maddie Southern and the team on this amazing achievement.  Read more about the amazing work they are doing here.

In December Patcham Infant School, Coldean Primary School, St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School and BHASVIC received inspections.  Brighton Aldridge Community Academy also received a monitoring visit. We look forward to reading their reports and sharing their outcomes.

St Mark’s CE Primary School have received Requires Improvement grading in their last inspection.  The report notes many improvements since the last inspection including a good judgement for leadership and management. The inspector comments included: “Pupils beam with happiness to learn in a place where staff ensure that all pupils show care and respect for each other. Pupils are proud of the inclusive culture of their school”.  We will continue to provide significant support to the school alongside support from the wider education partnership.

Goodbyes

We say goodbye this month to Helen Longton-Howorth who is stepping down as Headteacher at Carden Primary School.  Helen has been a very valued colleague within the Brighton & Hove Education Partnership during her long service and will be much missed across the city.  We wish her the best of luck for the future.

We also say goodbye to Kate Williams who is moving on from her position as Headteacher at Longhill High School and moving back to her home in Wales. Kate has always shown incredible commitment and determination to provide a good education to the students of Longhill, as well as being committed to partnership with colleagues throughout Brighton and Hove.  We wish Kate all the best for the future and hope to keep in touch.

Kate Williams

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

 

Anti Bullying Work

 

                                Some examples of work at St Luke’s Primary School

It has been great to hear more about how schools across the city have participated in anti bullying week activities this month.  Children have really enjoyed making “stop-start plates” about the mean and bullying behaviour they would like to stop and the behaviour they would like to start and see more of.  They have been exploring the theme 'reach out to stop bullying behaviour' and making their own ‘reaching out’ statements and arms. These are images from work that took place at St Luke’s Primary School.

Education Leadership Conference 

                                                   Attendees at the conference 

Earlier this month we held our Education Leadership Conference, which focused on “Education Trends: What to watch on the horizon”.  It provided a timely opportunity for school and college leaders to reflect on the issues and challenges facing the education sector at this time. Keynote speaker Laura McInerney - an education journalist and co-founder of the daily survey app, Teacher Tapp - led the thinking, exploring national developments and discussing some of the key drivers of change. Using the latest news stories and data, Laura explained some future education trends and their implications for pupils, staff and education leaders. It was great to see so many leaders from across the phases of education represented.

Primary Schools Cross Country

Mayor Lizzie Dean presenting the medals

Even the mud and rain didn’t put a dampener on the Primary Schools Cross Country competition which took place earlier this month at Waterhall.  Over 1,000 year 5 and 6 children from 40 primary and junior schools across the city took part in both individual and team races at the event with overall winners coming from Westdene Primary, Goldstone Primary, Balfour Primary, Aldrington Primary and Hangleton Primary. 

The event relies on the Active for Life team – who are part of the Healthy Lifestyles Team - as well as a number of volunteers and sports leaders from local colleges and secondary schools.   Thank you to the Sports Leaders from Blatchington Mill, Dorothy Stringer, BHASVIC and Varndean College who all went above and beyond in the muddy conditions and to Phoenix Athletics club for their support for the event.  Mayor Lizzie Dean presented the medals to the top 3 finishers in each of the races. Congratulations to everyone involved!

UK Youth Parliament Reps – House of Commons Debate

                                     Deneb and Georgia at the House of Commons

On Friday 4 November Deneb and Georgia, our Members for Youth Parliament for Brighton and Hove, travelled to sit in the House of Commons with over 250 other UK Youth Parliament Reps from across the UK and also, for the first time, from British Overseas Territories. They debated five key topics relating to Health and Wellbeing, with health, wellbeing and the cost of living being voted the number one issue nationally. This will be the focus of their work and the work of the UK Youth Parliament for the coming year.

KS2-KS3 City Maths Project 2022-23

                                   Teachers work together on sharing strategies and approaches

The Local Authority team and the Sussex Maths Hub have collaborated to offer schools an exciting opportunity to work together to support pupils across the city.  This new combined offer will meet the objectives of both the 5 – 8 Continuity project and the LA’s commitment to improving outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.  In addition, it will strengthen the links between primary and secondary schools further supporting transition between the phases.  Teachers came together for the launch event of this programme earlier this month and will continue to work and learn from each other over the year. It will be great to hear more from teacher colleagues and pupils of the impact of this project.

Year 5/6 Girls Football Festival at Longhill High School

42 girls from Woodingdean Primary, City Academy Whitehawk, Our Lady of Lourdes Primary, St Margaret’s Primary and Saltdean Primary attended the Year 5 and 6 Girls Football Festival this month.  Run by a group of Longhill High’s female sports leaders, the event was part of the girls’ football legacy work with the FA Barclays Girls’ Football School Partnerships. A great afternoon was had by all!  Woodingdean Wanderers FC also attended the event to promote their local Wildcats session and later fed back that to say that five girls came along to the session on the following Saturday morning, after talking to the club and picking up a flyer at the festival! 

Disadvantage Newsletter

The Tackling Educational Disadvantage Strategy newsletter is now available and can be accessed by following this link.  The newsletter gives an update on recent activities around the Disadvantage Strategy which aims to encourage and support every disadvantaged pupil in the city to achieve their academic potential and leave school or college with a positive relationship with education.

A number of schools recently received training from Children North East in preparation for the ‘Poverty Proofing the School Day’ audits we will be conducting after Christmas. We learnt about poverty across the UK, the impact of poverty on families and especially children and young people and we had time to begin to consider strategies and changes to plans and systems that would help.  Schools in Brighton and Hove have been taking part in Poverty Proofing the School Day for over five years now and the majority of schools have engaged with at least one audit. With this latest round, we hope to build on the work that has already taken place, and support schools to consider how best to support members of their community struggling with poverty.

Youth Council Kickstart Work on PSHE with Focus Group in B Fest

Youth Councillors taking part in the focus group

 

In partnership with Brighton Youth Centre, following the success of the YouthWise event earlier this year, the Youth Council has designed and facilitated a PSHE Focus Group as part of the B Fest Youth Arts Festival. The hope was to better understand young people’s experience of PSHE learning through school and external organisations with a view to working towards improving the experience of PSHE for young people. The interim report for this listening event will be available shortly on the Youth Council website. They will be running two more events in 2023 with the results being captured and presented in a ‘zine’.

Ofsted inspections have taken place at St Nicolas CE Primary School and Patcham Infant School this month and we are waiting for the outcomes of those inspections and that of St Mark’s CE Primary School whose inspection took place just before half term. 

Congratulations to Varndean School on retaining their Ofsted Good grading in their inspection last month. The report stated that the school was outstanding in many areas including Behaviour and Attitudes, Personal Development and Leadership and Management. The inspector wrote: “School leaders are passionate and ambitious about what pupils will learn. Highly experienced, knowledgeable governors share and shape this mission”, “teachers are real experts in their subjects” and “pupils are impressive and incredibly proud of their school.”

Welcomes 

We welcome Emma Remnant this month who is taking on the Interim Head Teacher role at Stanford Infant School whilst Madeleine Denyer is on adoption leave.  We look forward to working closely with Emma in her new position.

                                                                      Emma Remnant

I am very pleased to also welcome Jane Joshi who has stepped into the role of Acting Headteacher at St Martin’s CE Primary School this month and look forward to working with Jane over the coming months.

                                                                Jane Joshi

We also welcomed several new colleagues to the Skills and Employment Service this month. Michael Price is the new Senior Employability and Project Officer, managing the Supported Employment and Employment Hub teams and Holly Stockley has taken up the role of Employment Hub Coordinator as the new face of the Youth Employment Hub.  Welcome to both Michael and Holly.

Michael Price and Holly Stockley

Welcome also to Hannah Reed who joins the Skills and Employment team this month as the Post 16 Consultant and will be working with all the 16 – 19 providers in the city.  

Hannah Reed

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

School Games Mark

 

A huge congratulations to 37 schools in Brighton and Hove who have achieved the National School Games Mark Award 2021/22.  The School Games Mark is a Government-led award scheme launched in 2012, facilitated by the Youth Sport Trust to reward and recognise schools’ engagement in School Games against a national benchmark and to celebrate keeping young people active.  Well done to these schools for offering such a varied PE and School Sport programme.   Schools can be awarded a bronze, silver, gold or platinum mark. The platinum mark is a real achievement – to be awarded this, a gold mark needs to have been maintained for five subsequent years. Congratulations to Downs Juniors, Coldean Primary, Elm Grove Primary and Hertford Juniors who have all been awarded a Platinum Mark! 

Apprenticeship Outward Bounds

Apprentices taking part in sailing and climbing

I have enjoyed hearing about the outward bounds activity event organised by the Apprenticeship Team which took place this month. This was an amazing opportunity for 20 volunteer apprentices to take part in two days of activities involving archery, sailing and climbing.  The event ended with learning to build a raft and sail it.  Activities were based around the Council’s values and behaviours and helped build confidence by working as a team, trusting others and communicating.  The event was funded through grants received from ESFA.  One attendee said:- “It was a fantastic opportunity to meet and collaborate with people from different parts of the organisation and learn about their roles at BHCC, which helps to build a better understanding about what the organisation does”. Well done to everyone involved!

Youth Transport Campaign

             Members of the Youth Transport Campaign meeting Geoff Raw and local MPs

I was very interested to hear that Members of the Youth Transport Campaign met with all three local MPs alongside the Chair for the Children and Young People’s Skills Committee this month.  They discussed the issues relating to bus travel that had been identified by the Youth Council, largely focussing around the relationships with young people, the complex ticketing process and the overall cost. They were also fortunate enough to be able to speak to Geoff Raw – Chief Executive of Brighton & Hove City Council, to gain his perspective and ideas.

Secondary and Primary Rugby League World Cup Festivals

Students taking part in tag rugby

Earlier this month, 60 secondary school students from four schools and 225 primary students from 19 schools took part in Rugby League Tag Rugby Festivals to celebrate the Rugby League World cup being held in England.  17 Sports Leaders from the Cardinal Newman Rugby Academy supported the event along with two students from the University of Brighton’s Rugby League Team. All of the students had a great time, many of them taking part in Tag Rugby and representing their school for the first time. 

Anti-Racist Education 

On 15 October, Brighton & Hove City Council held its first anti-racist education in the community event at Lighthouse in Brighton. Bringing together community and voluntary sector anti-racist education practitioners, attendees were able to share their contributions to furthering anti-racist education enabling more coordinated work and increased awareness of the richness our community sector holds.  An anti-racist education survey has been sent to every maintained school and maintained nursery in Brighton and Hove.  This survey is collecting information that will really help us to progress the strategy and to capture some of the brilliant work already taking place across the city so please do take a few minutes to complete this. The survey can be downloaded from BEEM.

Youth Parliament

                                    A focus group discussing health and wellbeing

          

This month, Members for Youth Parliament Georgia and Deneb have been busy listening to young people's voices around issues of Health and Wellbeing in Brighton and Hove. They led focus groups with groups in the city figuring out what health and wellbeing meant to young people in Brighton and Hove.

Children in Care and Care Leavers Awards 

Brighton and Hove Children’s Services held a special ‘Flying High’ Awards Ceremony to celebrate the achievements of our children in care and care leavers earlier this month. The ‘Flying High’ ceremony took place at the British Airways i360 with 50 children and young people invited to receive an award. There were outstanding hip hop music performances from two very talented Brighton and Hove care experienced young people, followed by a complementary flight on the i360 and some in-flight table tennis.  Congratulations to all the award winners!

Congratulations to Bee in the Woods

I was delighted to hear that Bee in the Woods Kindergarten have won the Nursery of the Year at the Nursery World Awards 2022.  Children from all over Brighton and Hove spend their days playing and learning in an amazing outdoor environment, where they are given the freedom to explore and investigate the natural world around them in safety. Very many congratulations to the Bee In The Woods Team on this outstanding achievement!

Marina Trip

The Children in Care Council and the Care Leavers Forum enjoying their trip

Last month, the Children in Care Council and the Care Leavers Forum enjoyed a joint trip to Brighton Marina - making pizzas, walking along the undercliff and seeing the Brighton shoreline from the vantage point of a boat. A great day was had by everyone, and it has helped to strengthen the links between the two groups.  For more information about the groups, please contact: debbie.garrett@brighton-hove.gov.uk or careleaversforum@brighton-hove.gov.uk.

St Mark’s CE Primary School and Varndean School have both received Ofsted inspections this month and we are awaiting the outcome. 

Welcomes 

We welcome a number of colleagues to the local authority this month.  Welcome to our Lead Teachers for anti-racism Dulani Kulasinghe (Patcham Infants), Elohor Knowles (Middle Street Primary), Flo Sparham (Goldstone Primary), Angela Simmonds (Varndean), Shareen Hone (Cardinal Newman) and Anoushka Visvalingham (St Luke’s Primary).  Along with anti-racist education advisor, Camille Kumar, this team will ensure the work we do under the strategy is both directly informed by teachers and support staff working in Brighton and Hove schools, and also is directly benefiting schools, colleges and nurseries across the city. 

I would like to welcome Katie Eberstein who has been working for the Sussex Wildlife Trust for over 20 years and leading BHee for over a decade. Katie will continue to support the delivery of the ‘Our City Our World’ project which the council is developing to help education establishments address environmental education, climate change, sustainability and bio-diversity issues.

                                                            Katie Eberstein

We also welcome Donna Keenan who has been appointed as the Apprenticeship and Pre-employment Manager.  Donna has worked for colleges and independent training providers in the city for a number of years and has previously worked in partnership with council colleagues to drive the apprenticeship and pre-employment strategy across the city.  

                                                              Donna Keenan

Welcome to Kate Scutt who joins the early years team as the Early Years Consultant, providing us with a strategic lead in expert professional advice, guidance and challenge to private, voluntary and independent (PVI) early years and childcare providers.  Kate has significant experience working in East Sussex and in Surrey leading quality and improvement in early years.

                                                                Kate Scutt

As we move into an exciting new phase of transformation for Family Hubs, we are pleased to welcome Stephen Woodward in his new role as Family Hubs Programme Manager. Stephen re-joins us from an 18-month secondment into the Policy Department of the DWP, where he worked regionally and nationally as a lead in their Reducing Parental Conflict programme.

 

Stephen Woodward

Goodbyes

We say goodbye this month to Alex Wingham who is moving on from his position as Head of St Martin’s Primary School.  Thank you to Alex for all of his hard work and commitment to the pupils at the school and we hope he will stay in touch.  Jane Joshi will be taking over as Acting Head.

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

Brighton and Hove City Council Apprenticeship Awards 2022

 

         Matthew Fleming , Ewan Brown, Sam Gathern, Geoff Raw, Rehanon Mackenzie, 

                                                     Lynne Rimmer, Aaron Burns

The academic year started positively with the Brighton and Hove City Council 2022 Apprenticeship Awards ceremony.  The event which took place on 1 September was hosted by the Apprenticeship and Pre-employment Team to acknowledge the talent and dedication of our apprentices.  The apprentices were invited to join Geoff Raw, Chief Executive, to a celebratory brunch and were able to discuss their experience of undertaking an apprenticeship, their life after completing it and how the apprenticeship has improved their performance in the workplace. 

Congratulations to all the winners - Sam Gathern (Intermediate Category Winner); Harry Wilson (Intermediate Category Winner) and Rehanon Mackenzie (Advanced/Higher Category Winner).   See more about what our apprentices have to say by watching what the Council think of our Apprentices. For questions about apprenticeships, please contact apprenticeships@brighton-hove.gov.uk.

Fourteen schools came together in September to participate in the second cohort of local authority funded Power of Reading training led by the Centre of Literacy for Primary Education (CLPE). The training was delivered CPLE’s Primary Adviser Teacher, Darren Matthews, who left teachers inspired and raring to go. Associate Power of Reading School, Rudyard Kipling, hosted the event with their lead teacher, Lindsay Vaughan sharing how this approach has transformed how teachers teach English and how pupils now engage with literacy in school and at home. John Bond, author and illustrator of the Mini Rabbit collection, also gave an interesting insight on his journey to becoming a children’s author.  If you would like to find out more about Power of Reading, please contact Joyti.Azad@brighton-hove.gov.uk.

               Darren Matthews delivering a whole school approach to literacy teaching

        Teachers enjoy the opportunity to discuss ideas and share practice with colleagues

John Bond shares his journey with teachers

Arts Award Success

         Examples of artwork for Part A of the Bronze Arts Award presented for moderation

I was delighted to hear about the success of the portfolios submitted earlier this year by the Arts Award Youth workers.  All 9 of the portfolios submitted passed the Bronze Arts Award and were given extremely positive written feedback.

The Arts Award Youth Workers from the Youth Participation Team work 1:1 with young people who have been referred by another professional such as a family coach, social worker or educational psychologist.  The work takes place both online and in person with participants using a mixture of online resources and platforms and actual physical diaries/scrapbooks.  For more information, please contact Julia Box (julia.box@brighton-hove.gov.uk) or Sarah Pain (sarah.pain@brighton-hove.gov.uk)  

The Nursery World Awards 2022

Congratulations to Bee in the Woods Kindergarten in Portslade who have been shortlisted for Nursery of the Year at the Nursery World Awards 2022.  Bee in the Woods was set up four years ago on a restored and rejuvenated disused area of woodland which they turned into a magical learning environment for Early Years.  Lucy, Director & Head of Adventures said “We are all over the moon to be shortlisted for this prestigious award! It is such an honour and I am so proud of the team for their dedication, determination and passion for children, families, community and the natural world.”  Good luck to everyone at Bee in the Woods!

Children in Care Art Exhibition

 A.C’s winning piece from KS4

The Virtual School’s art exhibition for children in care and children previously in care took place this month at the Phoenix Art Space in Brighton. The exhibition featured work resulting from the Virtual School’s recent art competition, with the winners having their work framed or put on plinths and all entrants having their work included in the show. A private view was held where the young artists as well as their friends, families and teachers could celebrate their wonderful and inspirational pieces of work. Well done to everyone who took part.

We Move – A Race Equality and Migrant Rights Summit

The We Move summit took place this month.  Organised by the Runnymede Trust, this was the largest race equality and migrant rights gathering in decades.   Brighton and Hove was represented by three of our newly recruited Lead Teachers for anti-racism, Dulani Kulasinghe (Patcham Infants), Elohor Peddy Knowles (Middle Street) and Flo Sparham (Goldstone Primary) who delivered a critical workshop on anti-racist education, sharing the Brighton and Hove journey and pushing participants to imagine a liberated education system. Sharing their personal reflections and key learnings from our city, the educators left participants with a sense of hope and possibility for the future.  For more information on anti-racist education, please contact Camille Kumar (Camille.kumar@brighton-hove.gov.uk) 

Home to School Transport VPAs

The Home to School Transport Vehicle Passenger Assistant team

I am pleased to say that the Home to School Transport VPAs (vehicle passenger assistants) are now a team of seven! The team meet every 6 weeks for themed coffee mornings to talk about the job, the children and young people, its rewards and any challenges they are facing. The team are really enjoying the work.  The team recently received some great feedback from parents who felt the VPAs had gone the extra mile, supporting a child to attend who had previously been refusing. 

“The VPAs kept in touch with us over the summer holidays in a variety of ways, [which] has been such a godsend to ensure that on return [my daughter] hasn’t felt like a gap of 7 1/2 weeks. She’s felt ‘kept in mind’ and that’s so important.  It’s made all the difference to be able to feel that [my daughter] is in safe hands, and that she feels safe too.”

It is always great to hear comments like these.  Well done to all of the team for their hard work.

Welcomes

I would like to welcome a number of colleagues to the local authority this month.  Hannah Kinchin-Frost is a teacher at Patcham High School and has taken on the role of lead PSHE teacher for the local authority.  Angela Simmonds is a teacher at Varndean School and is working as a lead teacher for equality and anti-bullying.  Alex Graham has taken up the role of Education Safeguarding Officer.  I look forward to working with all of our new colleagues over the coming months.

Alex Graham

It was a pleasure to also welcome our new and acting headteachers and heads of school to our annual council induction to welcome them to the city and support them all in their new roles.  

Scott Haywood, Head of School, St Peter’s Primary

Mark Dally, Head, Bevendean Primary

Stuart Scrase, Head, Coombe Road Primary

Amanda Meier, Co-Head Teacher, The Connected Hub

Nicola Ryan, Head of School, St Mary’s Catholic Primary

Russell Brentnall, Head, West Blatchington Primary

Alan Gunn, Head, Balfour Primary

Anne Gibbs, Head, Goldstone Primary

and 

Gemma Nunes, Head of School, St Mary Magdalen Primary

Best wishes,

Jo

 

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.