Fourteen schools from across the city came together earlier this term to participate in the third cohort of the local authority funded offer to train teachers in the Power of Reading 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 with starting this approach of using high quality texts to engage pupils in their writing. Associate Power of Reading school, Rudyard Kipling, hosted this event with their lead teacher, Lindsay Vaughan sharing the impact this approach has had on how teachers teach writing and the improvement in pupils’ engagement with literacy in school and at home.
Delegates were fortunate to have a presentation from Viviane Schwarz, award-winning author and illustrator of interactive books, picture books, graphic novels, and craft books. This also included how she uses these skills when she lectures in illustration and game design at university level. She provided an interesting and fascinating insight to her journey on 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
Lindsay Vaughan shares the impact of Power of Reading at Rudyard Kipling School
Youth Employability 2023 Published Results
The Youth Employability team
Well done to the Youth Employability team who now have their full set of published results for 2022-2023. These show that Brighton & Hove is within the second highest performing group of local authorities out of five for our combined Not in Education, Employment or Training and Not Known situations of young people. As well as providing careers advice, the team works with services across the council and post 16 providers to contact every young person in years 12 and 13 to ensure they have been offered a place of learning and then to ensure they have started and if not, offer support. Whilst the team have found 17 year olds are finding continuing in learning difficult, the percentage of both year groups being offered a place in learning is higher than both England and the South East.
Sustainable Development Goals
This year marks the half way point in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. To help schools recognise the importance of these goals and to celebrate the inspiring sustainability work going on within our city, Our City Our World and The Living Coast UNSECO Biosphere Region have launched a series of 17+1 videos featuring local champions talking about their work and how they are addressing the 17 global goals. Our City Our World recognises the importance of sharing good news stories with young people, and making them aware of local changemakers in our community. We hope these videos will be useful resources for school assemblies and classroom learning, whilst providing hope for young people and inspiring them in ways they can take action in their schools and communities. The videos can be accessed here and further news on this story here.
Youth Council Prepares For The future
Youth Council Members take part in a drainpipe team building activity
It’s been great to hear more about the work that the Brighton & Hove Youth Council have been doing to look at how they operate ahead of the launch of their next two year term from January 2024. This work has included looking at things like their structures of influence, to ensure they are listening and feeding back to the young people in the organisations they represent and reviewing the Constitution document which governs how they operate, including election process, membership, terms of office, aims and vision. These changes are being shared with all Youth Council members to reach a consensus on the final draft and will be officially signed off at a Full Youth Council meeting in the coming months. If you would like to see a copy of the current Youth Council Constitution or the new version when agreed and signed off please contact John Lewry, Lead Youth Participation Worker at john.lewry@brighton-hove.gov.uk
Skills and Employment Team Visit Brighton MET College
Skills and Employment Team visit Brighton MET College
The Skills and Employment Team led by Head of Service, Carla Butler, recently visited Brighton MET College - East Brighton College Campus, to meet the college's Senior Leadership Team, led by Principal, Paul Riley, and to tour of the campus facilities. The college and the council frequently work in partnership, and it was beneficial for both organisations to learn about current and future activities and explore further collaboration opportunities. Carla commented, “The college is focused on offering the city’s young people and adult learners a wide range of courses that meet the local skills needs. Seeing our future carpenters and electricians hard at work in the Construction Centre was so inspiring, I am delighted that the college has started offering T Levels this year, with preparations in place to expand the offer next year”. The college and council's partnership encompasses Apprenticeships, Careers, Construction, ESOL, Pastoral and Wellbeing, Pre-employment, Post-16 Curriculum, SEND, and sharing data and intelligence for DfE statutory returns.
School Games Mark Awards Celebration Event
Hertford Juniors award winners
Woodingdean Primary award winners
Well done to 38 schools across the city who achieved the School Games Mark Award for 2022/23. This is a national award which recognises a school’s commitment to PE, Sport and Physical Activity. A celebration event was held earlier this month at Sussex Cricket County Ground so that each school could receive their award from the Mayor Jackie O’Quinn. It was a great afternoon celebrating the success of the schools in the city!
Special mention goes to Hertford Juniors, Elm Grove Primary, Balfour Primary, Downs Juniors, Coldean Primary and City Academy Whitehawk who all achieved the Platinum School Games Mark. To be awarded Platinum status, each school must first achieve the Gold Mark for five consecutive years. A huge congratulations to the PE leads and staff at these schools for this brilliant achievement. The criteria for 2023/24 is on the School Games website Your School Games - School Games Mark and the application window opens on 1 May 2024.
Voices of Young People Represented at NHS Event
In October representatives from Brighton and Hove Youth Council attended an NHS organised event to feed their views directly to the Chair of the NHS – Stephen Lightfoot. Attended by over 30 young people from across Sussex, the event looked at the NHS’s five year plan, preparations for winter services and the aim of the NHS to put the views and interests of children and young people at its centre, given that this group makes up nearly 25% of its users.
Key themes throughout the day were around the pressure on mental health services, the lack of understanding and clarity on when young people should access services, especially A&E for their mental health, and a feeling of not being heard when issues had been reported. A Young People’s Mental Health Summit is being planned for the spring to look at clarifying and educating young people on mental health services in the city and how to effectively navigate what services are available. For more information, please contact John Lewry, Lead Youth Participation Worker at john.lewry@brighton-hove.gov.uk
Ofsted reports are now published for Tarnerland Nursery School, St Mary’s Catholic Primary School and Queen’s Park Primary School. Well done to all the schools for their hard work during the inspection process.
St Mary’s Catholic Primary School retained their ‘Good’ grade, with the inspectors stating ‘children thrive at this extremely ambitious school’, with behaviour being ‘exemplary’. They also highlighted that ‘in all subjects, the school’s curriculum is clearly sequenced from early years to Year 6. It is ambitious and relevant to the pupils of St Mary’s through the inclusion of local history studies and community links... Teaching is highly effective through the use of the school’s ‘six steps to successful learning’.
Tarnerland Nursery School was the first inspection for newly appointed headteacher Louise Collings. The school retained their Outstanding grade and the report stated that ‘children are treasured at Tarnerland. They are greeted every day with a smile and are exceptionally well cared for.’ Inspectors also noted ‘the curriculum really thinks about what children will need when they move on to primary education.’ Also, ‘communication and language are intricately woven throughout the school day. Talk is the number one priority. Staff make exceptional use of opportunities to speak to children. Ambitious vocabulary can be heard as adults model and expand children’s speech’.
Queen’s Park Primary School was graded as a school requiring improvement, although inspectors recognised the positive changes that have happened recently, with ‘decisive and effective action’ being taken by the new headteacher and the newly formed leadership team. The report identified that staff morale is high and pupils are happy. ‘The very youngest children, who have only just started school, have settled well and engage confidently with the many activities on offer’ and ‘the expectations of what pupils will learn and how they will behave are increasing following new guidance and training for staff’.
Dorothy Stringer School had an inspection in October and the report should be published soon.
Best wishes,
Jo
Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons
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