Eid Mubarak
It
has been good to see and hear about the Eid celebrations across our city
earlier this week. I hope that all our children, young people and their
families had a fabulous time celebrating together. It was positive for me to see
some of the work our schools have been doing during Eid.
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| Carden Primary Year 6 visit Al Medinah Mosque |
Year
6 at Carden Primary visited three local religious buildings learning about the
many similarities and shared history that exists between the three
Abrahamic religions. Learning to accept and respect other people's
faith is a British Value and pupils from Carden certainly represented
the school excellently by listening carefully and asking thoughtful and
respectful questions. They also visited Holland Road Baptist Church,
Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue and Al Medinah Mosque where they
explored the buildings and listened to talks lead by members of each faith.
A Family Picnic and Eid
Celebration was also held and Year 6 shared their work from these visits at the
picnic. A parent commented that this was a great
status booster for her kids to see the school celebrating a festival that her
child ordinarily celebrates with very few people; as they ‘don't have any family here it's wonderful to get a sense of how Eid is
celebrated in a large community’.
Sam Beal, Gavin
Thomas and Shiromi Cabraal from our Education & Skills team joined John
McKee, headteacher from Patcham High, for an Iftar Meal (the evening meal when
Muslims end their daily Ramadan fast) organised by the Dialogue Society. It was
a lovely event that focused on the importance of interfaith dialogue and
working together. More about the Dialogue Society can be found out on this link
http://www.dialoguesociety.org/ or by
following on Twitter @DialogueSociety
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| Year 6 art representing every child’s right to a safe place to live |
They received some fabulous feedback:
‘Absolutely Brilliant! Fantastic for the whole school to
join together for an event like this. Really beautiful artworks. Well done!’
‘A truly amazing display at Peter Gladwin. A real show of
talent. Thank you for being open to us to share in this wonderful artwork!’
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| Parents enjoying the art exhibition |
Peter Gladwin School was also featured in
the June issue of Sussex Life magazine. The article was about the
children’s love of reading and about their very special Reading / Therapy dogs,
who visit the school weekly to support many of the children’s enjoyment of
reading. Charlotte Barnes, Taboo’s owner and handler, has been coming to the school for a number of years and has helped many of our children learn to read
with confidence.
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| Leon and Archie reading the Taboo the Reading Therapy dog |
The dogs are very much part of the Health and Wellbeing
programme at the school and are having a huge impact on children’s confidence
and reading progress. Well done Peter Gladwin.
We were delighted that
Balfour Primary also had an article
published in the TES on the 7th of June about their mock election. The
experience helped the children to learn all about democracy and decision making.
Please click on the following link for more information: http://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/election-countdown-how-our-school-election-persuaded-me-voting-age
I was excited when I personally had the opportunity
to be involved by sending in my postal vote.
Election countdown: 'How our school election persuaded me the voting age should be reduced to four'
www.tes.com 'The process
let us build our philosophy for every child, family, and goat': One headteacher reflects on a
mock election.
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| Balfour Primary voting |
Virtual School
Conference
I was privileged to join colleagues from across Families, Children and
Learning, and our schools alongside foster carers and young people for the Virtual
School summer conference at the AMEX Community Stadium.
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| Lonny & Jo presenting Varndean's Attachment Aware approach |
This year’s theme was ‘Education & Corporate Parenting’ and we were
excited to have the inspirational Luke Rodgers as the keynote speaker, talking
about his experience as a care leaver and the importance of positiveness and
resilience. @Luke_Rodgers
www.fosterfocus.co.uk
Please click on this video link below:
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| Luke Rodgers |
In addition, we had presentations on attachment aware schools, the
inclusive behaviour policy, information on providing education for asylum
seeking young people, young people and foster family testimonies, Brighton
& Hove’s official Corporate Parenting Strategy and an update from Virtual
School headteacher Mark Storey and Assistant Director Helen Gulvin.
I was impressed with how our work to meet the needs of our children in
care and those adopted has progressed across the city over the past two years with
Brighton & Hove leading the way with its best practice.
Primary Moderation
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Moderation at Westdene
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Across the city over the last few weeks, most Primary,
Infant and Nursery schools have worked with the Local Authority moderation
teams for EYFS, Phonics Screening, Y2 Reading, Writing and Maths and Y6 writing
monitoring visits. We were also externally moderated by the Standards and
Testing Agency for KS1 Moderation.
We are a small team, enhanced and enriched by the expertise
and experience of school staff who commit to become part of the moderation team supporting class teachers as statutory markers of teacher assessment
judgements. The skill of the teacher team in working with colleagues through
this rigorous and intense process is to be commended. We endeavour to ensure
the process is supportive with teachers given time to share their evidence for
teacher assessment. The moderation process also provides opportunity to
consider strengths in current teaching and learning in relation to national
curriculum goals and areas that all school staff may need to revisit or
develop. Thank you to all staff and schools for engaging positively and
professionally in this statutory process.
Coombe Road have recently had an inspection and I look forward to reporting back on this in my next blog once the report is out. I’m delighted to report that Rudyard Kipling have once again been graded as Good. Well done to Joanne and her team for all their hard work.
Amanda
Spielman gave a speech at the Festival of Education, ‘Enriching the fabric of
education’. She talked about a review of the curriculum and the importance of
recognising leadership challenges and valuing management. Amanda also discussed
the future being about inspecting on the things that really matter for good
education, which is music to our ears! Take a look:
Celebration at
Roundabout Children’s Centre
10 Volunteers from Roundabout and the Deans Children’s
Centre came to a thank you lunch as part of the Nationwide Volunteers
Celebrations month.
Helen Cowling Children’s Centre Service Manager presented
all of the volunteers with their Certificates of Achievement. Our Volunteers
are an asset to the centres and we appreciate all of their time they give to us
volunteering in groups, attending advisory meetings and much more.
Equality and Diversity in schools
I joined
headteachers and college principals across all phases of education this month to
challenge ourselves and our approaches to meeting the needs of our BME students
across the city. Thank you to Ashley Harold (headteacher of Blatchington Mill)
for opening the event with some open and honest reflections on the need to tackle
discrimination.
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| Ashley Harold HT Blatchington Mill opening event on BME |
We were able to explore
how educational settings are developing in response to the changing ethnic
demographic. We looked at how we can build on good practice to further develop
evidence based practice to ensure positive outcomes for all our students.
The speakers were
thought provoking and we all appreciated the personal stories from schools and
community members on the challenges of inclusion.
Take a look here
on BEEM here
http://beem.org.uk/P2396 for the presentation and resources that were shared.
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Abha Aggarwal from RISC (Reading International Solidarity Centre) on colourblindness
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Our
Future City
Joining my colleagues and
partners on Our Future City Board last week, I was able to hear about the
positive outcome of our ‘#Be Well Programme’. Over 350 children from nursery and
primary schools in the city have been taking part in creative projects,
designed around identified wellbeing needs.
The programme brought together colleagues working in education and across the
arts and cultural sector to co-design innovative creative experiences which
utilised music, dance, animation, puppet making, story-telling and sculpture to
explore themes that included belonging, resilience and identity. The
programme has been very successful and I would like to thank all schools that participated.
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| School children visiting the Booth Museum |
An
evaluation report and film have been created, including ten case studies which
outline the approaches used and the impact on wellbeing, with all ten schools
reporting an uplift in feelings of wellbeing from participating children. The
film, report and associated resources will be available from the Our Future
City website from mid July: http://www.ourfuturecity.org.uk/ Please
do take a look.
Poverty Proofing
This month we began our work to implement the ‘Poverty
Proofing School Day Programme’. It involves using an audit tool that helps
schools review their practice through the lens of poverty, to remove barriers
to learning and improve outcomes. A team of trained researchers (all staff from
local schools or Local Authority) will be going into schools and listening to
all the students over a period of days. There is also an online survey for
parents, staff and governors. They then write a report, which will identify
areas to celebrate and areas to consider.
The best practice will be shared across the city and
school leaders will decide how to act on the areas for consideration.
Researchers are completing their training by shadowing
the lead from Children North East in Woodingdean and BACA and then will start
the audits this term with Patcham Junior and Moulsecoomb Primary. 35% of
schools have expressed an interest so far. If you would like to know more,
please contact Hilary Ferries (hilary.ferries@brighton-hove.gov.uk).
Iceland Nursery Visitors
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| A Talk about EYFS in the Royal Spa Nursery Gardens |
13 students from Iceland visited Tarner and Roundabout
Children's Centres, Royal Spa and Tarnerland Nursery School, Roundabout
Nursery and Queen's Park Primary school to learn about our methods of supporting
our youngest children and their families in the city. They were very impressed
with the two day programme that the Early Years Team arranged for them, which
involved looking at how Children's Centres deliver interventions in the home
and in groups to support families, how the nurseries deliver the Early Years
Foundation Stage Curriculum, and how early education is organised and funded in
the UK. They have already booked another visit for next year!
Welcome to new members of the team
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| Alia in the Post and Print Team |
We are
delighted to welcome Alia Hassan, who has started a Business Admin
Apprenticeship working in the Post and Print team at Hove Town Hall. This was
arranged by Carla Butler, the council’s Apprenticeship Programme Officer.
Brighton Metropolitan College are offering additional learning support.
Carla
originally found Alia some work experience with the council’s Transport
Department which was very successful and led to Alia being offered her
Apprenticeship.
Alia says ‘I think this is a really good opportunity and
I am enjoying my job. I am learning lots about using the printers, franking and
enveloping machines. I am also doing some work in the Post Room - it is quite
busy in there!’
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| Karina Davis |
Welcome also to Karina Davis, a new member to Carla
Butler's Apprenticeship Team, employed as a Business Support Officer. Karina
will be supporting the administration of the Apprenticeship Levy, recruitment
and apprenticeship activities.
Karina says ‘I am astonished by the sheer range of
apprenticeships available and really looking forward to working in the
Apprenticeship Team and meeting new and existing apprentices.’
We all look forward to working closely with her.
Please take a look at the apprenticeship videos on the
Brighton & Hove Council YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg6-4QRIpCdEm8E3IJ7nRmQ
Albion in the Community will be delivering the Premier League Primary Stars programme over the next academic year in schools, which will see the charity use the appeal of the Premier League to inspire children to learn, be active and develop important life skills.
Albion in the Community are holding an information event about
the programme at the American Express Community Stadium on Thursday 6 July and
would like all of the primary schools to be involved.
Read more: tinyurl.com/yd6oyzdk
Official
website: www.albioninthecommunity.org.uk
Twitter: @albioninthecomm
Facebook: albioninthecommunity14
Best wishes,
Jo
Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons
Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.
