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
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.
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.
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
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