Starting the New Academic Year on a High!

Brighton i360

September is an extremely busy month for families and schools but also a positive time for many children and young people starting new phases of education. Not only has the i360 gone up this Summer, we have also had a great set of education results this year with cross phase improvement. Congratulations to schools and their pupils on these impressive results. Early years’ continues to improve and we are closing the gap with the national phonics score. We are above the national average for KS1 and the results for KS2 placed us in joint 22 out of all local authorities nationally for attainment. It is the first year that GCSE results have been published using attainment and progress 8 and again we are above national and A level results again improved from last year. I know there is still more to do for every child in every school to achieve well, but would like to congratulate colleagues on our success across the city. 


Youth Service Summer Update
The Youth Service had a busy and successful summer, starting off with the vulnerable young people’s team delivering the annual ‘Youth Art’s Award in a Week’ programme. Eight young people completed their Bronze Award, in addition one young woman completed her silver, completing the GCSE requirements she needed to get into her chosen college course in September.

The detached team with our specialist sexual health and substance misuse workers continued sessions throughout the afternoons and evenings across the parks, with particular focus on the groups of young people at the Level. They also had a presence at this year’s Pride, supporting young people to keep safe, giving them access to water, food, sun cream and support as part of the Pride Buddy Scheme in partnership with RUOK?

Pride Buddies with the youth bus

The Participation & Advocacy team worked with the Youth Council to continue developing their campaign film and leaflet advising teachers around the ‘curriculum for life’ and best ways to deliver PSHE lessons. We also delivered a three day ‘Your Choice Programme’ for 16 young people who are looked after. The three days used youth work activities and techniques, delivered by the youth service team, such as drama, Duke of Edinburgh scheme taster sessions and graffiti art to enable the group to reflect on and express their views on how they feel the city is doing as Corporate Parents.  This work will all feed into the updated Corporate Parenting Strategy which will be completed towards the end of the year.

CPS -  Corporate Parenting Strategy, Your Choice Programme Graffiti

'Your Choice'event held over the summer

If you would like any further information on the work of the youth service, please contact Chris Parfitt chris.parfitt@brighton-hove.gcsx.gov.uk 01273 294252.

I am delighted to say that we have now received the report for both Hove Junior School and St Margaret’s Primary following their inspections in July and they both awarded Good. Congratulations to the teams at both schools. Ofsted were in St Nicholas Primary on 14th-15th of September, and St Bartholomew’s Primary on the 21st -22nd of September. I look forward to reporting on their outcomes in the next blog.  

This October Brighton & Hove City Council is promoting an anti-stigma mental health campaign. The #IAMWHOLE campaign is being launched by the NHS in partnership with the YMCA and Brighton & Hove City Council on Monday 10 October - World Mental Health Day 2016. #IAMWHOLE is an innovative new anti-stigma mental health campaign, designed to reach out to young people aged 13-25, with a range of activities which will take place from 10 October. The messages will also be shared with parents, teachers and employers through national and regional media coverage and the use of ‘Schools Against Stigma’ workshop materials. Jordan Stephens from UK hip-hop duo The Rizzle Kicks is the figurehead for the campaign.  In advance people can show support for the campaign by signing up to the #IAMWHOLE thunderclap https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/46725-iamwhole. This online thunderclap will use social media to raise awareness as messages are shared far and wide at 11am on World Mental Health Day. Please have a look.


Headteacher’s Induction Monday 12 September 
I had the pleasure of attending our Headteachers Induction this month. Each year, all new headteachers, acting heads and heads of school are invited to the authority run welcome lunch and induction session. As well as the opportunity to meet with fellow new heads across the city, the induction programme includes a number of informative sessions with key staff within our Families, Children and Learning teams.
Pinaki Ghoshal, Executive Director of the Families directorate opened the event, welcoming attendees in their new leadership roles. The first sessions outlined the key priorities, shared vision and strong partnership working across the family of schools in Brighton & Hove and we provided more details about the services and support we provide to schools. There was also a fantastic insightful session from a headteacher in the city. Feedback from everyone who attended was positive and it was a delight to see the enthusiasm, engagement and commitment of our future leaders.
A warm welcome to Kate Williams at Longhill High, John McKee at Patcham High and Mary Ellinger at Royal Spa.  We also have a couple of acting Headteachers this year: Vicky Phillips at Coombe Road Primary and Jonathan Hancock covering maternity leave at St Mary's Catholic Primary.We are also lucky enough to have new Heads of School for Balfour Primary Sally Geard and Teresa Hill, for City Academy Whitehawk Mark Church, and for Hove Juniors David Swindells and Nicole Reeves.


PACA Awards Ceremony




















On the evening of the 15 September I visited the University of Sussex to join school staff, parents and young people from PACA for their amazing annual award ceremony. Katie Scott the school principal led the event with enthusiasm clearly showing how proud she was of the success of all the young people receiving awards. It was also so pleasing to see the massive progress some young people have made and the resilience of some to strive for success.

Amaze Launch Event 

Local Authority staff, partners and parents joined Amaze to launch their fantastic new fact sheets in the Brighton & Hove Mayor's Office on Tuesday 13 September. The fact sheets cover a wide range of subjects offering advice on many different topics like short breaks, claiming benefits, sleep issues, adaptations, Special Education Needs (SEN) and many others.  If you haven't already seen just how wide ranging the topics covered are, you can download all 40 factsheets at: http://amazebrighton.org.uk/ resources/publications/fact-sheets.   Please take a look.

Amaze launch with Mayor

Welcome to our Newly Qualified Teachers 

We’re supporting over 160 Newly Qualified Teachers on induction this year and earlier this month we held welcome events for both primary and secondary NQTs (Newly Qualified Teachers). As well as the speeches from local authority colleagues, NQTs also appreciated hearing from teachers who have just finished their induction and gave advice about what to prioritise to ensure they make the most of the opportunities and support available to them. I’d particularly like to thank Clare Shucksmith and Sophie Brown from Benfield, who talked at our primary event, and Kayleigh Lambert and James Rayment from Varndean who spoke to secondary colleagues. Their advice and enthusiasm was spot on! Sharon MacKenzie and colleagues from the School Workforce Development team continue to develop their support to schools in this area and we now have a one-stop-shop for NQT support. All registrations, assessments, resources and training opportunities are now available on BEEM, which has been receiving really positive feedback from the NQTs and their induction tutors. 

Welcome event for Newly Qualified Teachers

Snow Dogs

Brighton & Hove takes the 'lead' on Snow Dogs sculptures across the city.  I hope you and your children and young people are enjoying spotting the fabulous sculptures across the city.  We have been working closely with Wild in Art and Martlets Hospice to bring ‘Snowdogs by the Sea’, a public art event to Brighton & Hove that opened last week. The event features a number of individually designed artworks based on Raymond Briggs’s Snowdog. Each Snowdog has been decorated by local artists, schools & communities – all designed to reflect and celebrate Brighton’s rich cultural offer and vibrant personality.

One of the Snowdogs

The trail encourages people to be ‘tourists in their own town’ and also invite visitors to explore, discover and celebrate the town. Integral to the event, is a city-wide education programme showcasing young people’s creativity. The schools trail comprises of medium-sized 'Snowpups' and ‘Snowdogs’ which will run alongside the main trail animating indoor spaces such as libraries, museums and art centres.  As part of this campaign, the finale will be a charity auction of the sculptures with the aim of raising over £100,000 for Martlets Hospice.

Music Across the City Over the Summer

Over 400 children and young people attended the Music Summer School this year with courses including an Infant Violin Fun Day, Wind Band, singing, music technology, and band workshops. Every course culminated in a celebration performance, with more than 20 summer school concerts taking place during July, showcasing the great progress made by these young musicians.  In early July the Brighton Youth Orchestra and Big Band visited Slovenia and Austria, performing an eclectic programme of music to appreciative audiences. Both groups include young musicians from secondary schools across the city, many of whom will go on to study at university or Music College this term.

Brighton Youth Orchestra

Early Years

Well done to My First Friends Nursery and ToyBox Pre-School which are the latest Early Years settings in the city to have achieved their Bronze award from Modeshift STARS. Modeshift STARS is a national awards scheme which has been established to recognise schools & Early Years settings that have demonstrated excellence in supporting cycling, walking and other forms of sustainable travel (see www.modeshiftstars.org). 

My First Friends and ToyBox have been working hard over the last few months on initiatives which are encouraging the children, families and staff to travel more actively, safely and sustainably to their settings. Some of the activities they have taken part in are: joining in Early Years Walking Week; creating a ‘5 Minute Walking.   Zone map’ and encouraging everyone to walk at least the last five minutes to their settings; taking the children for walks in the local environment during which they actively discuss road safety.

Their success follows on from that of the three Footsteps Nurseries in Hove, Portslade and Hollingbury who all gained their Bronze awards earlier this year. Footsteps are now working towards the Silver and Gold awards, and a number of other settings across the city are working towards achieving their Bronze Modeshift STARS awards later this year. I am excited to see that the dedication and work of our early years settings is helping a generation of children and families to embrace active and safer travel from an early age. 

Footsteps receiving their Bronze award

Apprenticeship Awareness

Over the next nine months, an apprenticeship awareness programme will be run in secondary schools across the city, promoting apprenticeships and traineeships locally. There will also be a wider network of apprenticeship ambassadors from a range of sectors who will be available to visit secondary and primary schools to promote apprenticeships.  Please contact Georgia Easteal if you would like a visit from an ambassador to talk to students, parents or teachers: Georgia.Easteal@brighton-hove.gov.uk.  Georgia is one of our apprentices, who joined the council straight from Longhill last year, and is starting her second apprenticeship with the Skills and Employment team this month.

Georgia Easteal, Apprentice

Goodbye and thank you

Gill Manton

Gill Manton is leaving the Council this week to take up a post in Croydon Council as the Head of the Virtual School. She is very much looking forward to starting her new role in Croydon with all the challenges and opportunities that brings as she wants to be able to make a difference to their lives and deliver an excellent service.  Gill started working in Brighton & Hove in January 2015 as the Strategic Attendance Lead placed in the Behaviour and Attendance Team. Gill led some fantastic work with the team to improve school attendance and keep Brighton &Hove in line with our statistical neighbours.  The ‘Every School Day Matters’ campaign captured the eye of many people including a children’s consultant at the Royal Sussex Hospital which has helped with a new multi-agency piece of work being developed with health colleagues. The campaign helped raise the profile of school attendance across the City with residents and key stakeholders.  I want to thank Gill for all her hard work here at Brighton & Hove. We wish her the very best in her new role.

Brighton & Hove’s School & College Leaders’ Conference

Building Leadership Capacity, Bramber House, University of Sussex

Wednesday 4 October 2016, 9am – 1pm 

I am looking forward to joining you all and hearing from our keynote speaker Christine Gilbert CBE who will talk about ‘leading in a school led system‘. Professor Christine Gilbert CBE was Chief Inspector, Education, Children’s Services & Schools at Ofsted from 2006 until 2011. Prior to this, she was Chief Executive of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. She joined the council in 1997 as Corporate Director, Education, having been Director of Education in the London Borough of Harrow. Christine spent 18 years teaching in schools, eight of them as a secondary school headteacher.

We will also hear from Adam Wright, Psychological Skills Mentor about how to optimise whole school performance. From the Olympic podium into the classroom, an opportunity to learn how to optimise whole school performance, through the powerful mind management model that has helped support the success of British cycling teams and other team GB sports. 

To book, please email schools.training@brighton-hove.gov.uk,  tel: 01273 293511 or you can book by logging in to BEEM http://www.beem.org.uk/Training 

Best wishes,
Jo


Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons


Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

It’s the end of another academic year!
For those of you who work in schools, colleges and other education provision it is the end of a busy academic year and for our local authority (LA) team, and wider partners it is often the time you take a well-deserved summer break. There have been many challenges and changes for us all to face this year with pressures on budgets, significant changes in central government and Brexit, among other things. However, there have been many positive developments with innovation and best practice to be proud of. We have again increased the percentage of schools that are good and outstanding and our gaps in achievement are beginning to close. We have had a successful CQC / Ofsted SEND inspection and been recognised by Ofsted for our forward thinking work developing adoption support.  We were also named amongst the top LAs in the country for tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools. There have also been numerous examples of our children and young people across the city achieving excellence in what they do.

Well done to you all and enjoy the long awaited sunshine, and for those who are taking a break enjoy your well-deserved holiday.

Schools of Sanctuary


We know from tweets and feedback that many schools marked Refugee Week at the end of June and raised awareness of what it means to be a refugee. Since Refugee Week, Coldean Primary School has been awarded a Schools of Sanctuary certificate and so congratulations to them. A Schools of Sanctuary network meeting has taken place at Elm Grove Primary School where the pupil Sanctuary Team told us about the work they have been doing in school to develop a Welcome Noticeboard (pictured) and a pack for newly arrived pupils. They also told us about the project they were leading to collect Back to School Kits for refugee children. More about their work is on this page of the Elm Grove website:

http://www.thelifecloud.net/schools/ElmGrovePrimarySchool/spaces/Children/resources/RootFolder/ChildrenHomepage.page

Inspired by the work at Elm Grove, St Luke’s Primary has since collected 38 Back to School Kits which is great news:

http://www.stlukes.brighton-hove.sch.uk/news/an-amazing-response-to-refugee-back-to-school-kit-appeal/
If you would like to know more about the Schools of Sanctuary Programme please email pshe@brighton-hove.gov.uk



I am very proud that once again this year Brighton & Hove City Council has been named among the top local authorities in the country for tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools. Stonewall has put the council in second place in its 2016 Education Equality Index. Stonewall has described the work the council does in partnership with schools as ‘consistently innovative’ in finding ways to celebrate difference, challenge prejudice and support lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans students. Stonewall also praised the work the council does jointly with local charity the Allsorts Youth Project and American Express to support schools. Pictured below is Sam Beal, Partnership Adviser Health & Wellbeing and Ryan Gingell from Allsorts Youth Project who have led and delivered so much of our good work in this area.

Thanks to school communities for all you are doing to promote equality and inclusion and challenge prejudice. If you would like support to further develop your practice please email pshe@brighton-hove.gov.uk or visit www.pier2peer.org.uk 

Children and young people with SEND in Brighton & Hove and their families are very well supported, according to the country’s two key inspection agencies.  A joint inspection carried out by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission has praised services delivered by Brighton & Hove City Council and the local NHS for their ‘unwavering focus on the overall needs of children and young people who have a special educational need or disability’. The report notes that Brighton & Hove local area puts the child or young person with SEN or disability and their family, at the centre of its vision to improve services.  We are of course delighted and would like to thank all our schools, parents, children and young people and wider parties for their contribution.

https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/content/press-release/inspectors-praise-city%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98unwavering-focus%E2%80%99-sen-children%E2%80%99s-needs 

We also end the year in line with the recently published national figure of 86% of schools good or outstanding across the city. Congratulations to those schools who have gone from Requires Improvement to Good – most recently St Margaret’s CE Primary, and to those schools that have maintained their judgements of Good or Outstanding this year.  Congratulations to Downs View who received an Outstanding last month. Hove Junior School has been inspected this month so I’ll report back on this in the next blog once we receive the report.

The Reading Party
It was a pleasure to attend a fantastic event celebrating and encouraging reading on 13 July at the cricket ground. The event marked the 6th anniversary of the Every Child a Reader (ECaR) initiative in Brighton & Hove and also sees the first children to benefit from the scheme in year 1 (2010) now going off to secondary school at the end of this term.  This gathering celebrated the successful outcomes of Families, Children and Learning’s long term strategy and investment in the program to provide intensive and high quality early intervention for children in early reading and writing. Reading Recovery early literacy intervention and ECaR are a key part of our school improvement strategy.  Thank you to all our schools who support and deliver the program and of course to the parents and children who have done so well to ensure we have seen improved outcomes year on year.

Reading Party

Chomp
Chomp provides a nutritious meal and a space to play for low income families during the summer holidays. This is aimed at those families that rely on free school meals during term time. Chomp has been going since Easter 2014, and has now served over 1,000 meals to children and their parents. We are encouraging schools to promote this with families who will benefit.
See link for more details in relation to Chomp: http://onechurchbrighton.org/what-we-do/chomp

Homewood College Leavers Assembly 
The Year 11 leavers’ assembly took place in the first week of July at Homewood College. It was a positive event full of celebrations of the achievements of the young people. All 14 students attended, with parents and carers, guests from the LA team, were also present. All of the young people have secured places in September for further education: Access to Music (media and engineering), City College, Plumpton College (Horticulture/animal care and pre apprenticeship courses) and at Northbrook 2 students are studying a Level 3 Software and Games Development). They are all looking forward to receiving their GCSE results and are expecting to do well. The assembly was coordinated by Lucy Gordon (Deputy Head) and there was an introduction by Mark Helstrip (Interim Head teacher) and a presentation by Martin Brown(Welfare Manager). A number of the children were sad to be leaving Homewood; it was a very emotional experience saying farewell. We wish all the students the very best for the future.

B&H Education Partnership
Following recent approval at Children Young People and Skills committee we have launched an engagement phase to explore the options of strengthening our partnership of Schools (including free schools and academies),  and the wider education partnership including colleges and our two universities in Brighton and Hove. From discussions at committee it was clear that there is a wide range of audiences that would want to participate in this engagement period and that they would all be interested in different aspects of the proposals. We have therefore separated the engagement period into two parts and will be engaging with parents and young people and our wider education partners early in the Autumn term.

We are aware that it is close to the end of the summer term but are keen for the consultation document and current thinking to be made public. This will also allow respondents the opportunity to consider the possible changes and respond over the summer holidays should they wish. We have extended the consultation period further into the Autumn to allow additional time for responses. We will also be holding a range of engagement meetings and small group discussions in the Autumn term, which we will be in touch about after the summer break.

The intention of this engagement exercise is to gain your views on the different approaches and ways we could work in partnership to improve outcomes. An interim report of the early response to the engagement exercise will be presented at Children Young People and Skills committee on 25th November. With a full report on all key findings and a model to go out for formal consultation to be presented to Children Young People and Skills on 9th January 2017.

Our motivation for these proposals is to ensure that we create our own future in a rapidly changing education landscape. We believe that we have a strong partnership of schools and that there is a healthy, robust relationship between the Local Authority, schools, colleges and the wider education partners. The purpose is to help sustain, strengthen and expand this partnership. This proposed approach would enable the continued journey to develop a self-improving system, through a purposeful and robust partnership that has a formal model of governance and agreed ways of working.

The engagement exercise is available via this link http://consult.brighton-hove.gov.uk/public/bhcc/schools_partnership/schools_led_partnership

Adoption Support – Attachment Aware Brighton
I was delighted that our Virtual School and Adoption Team here in Brighton & Hove were recognised in Ofsted annual report for their best practice.
“In Brighton and Hove, the strong commitment and active engagement of senior leaders from a wide range of agencies has made a significant, positive difference to the quality and extent of adoption support. A strategic steering group (including representatives from health, education, youth services, early years, early help, educational psychology, adoptive parents and voluntary agencies) has been central to building a culture of city-wide responsibility for adoption support rather than it being viewed as predominantly the concern and responsibility of the local authority adoption service. The group has focused strongly on developing an ‘attachment-friendly’ Brighton and Hove, where professionals can identify and respond swiftly and appropriately to meet adopted children’s additional needs. The city’s approach is underpinned by a support framework that is easily accessible and available to adopted children, adoptive parents and prospective adopters.”

See link for complete case study on page 47 of report: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/534008/Ofsted_social_care_annual_report_2016.pdf 

Post 16+ Skills 
On July 14th Newman College ran a year 12 Employability Careers Fair in association with Sussex Business for Schools.

The aim of the event was to enable all year 12 students to meet and work with local businesses and providers and to access information about a range of opportunities for effective education and career progression pathways. Employers such as the NHS, Hilton Metropole and Grovelands Finance were at the fair. The universities and various apprenticeship opportunities were also promoted on the day. It is hoped that in future years a wider event for schools with 6th forms can be mounted.

A number of events are being planned from September, for all schools, including primary students, to raise awareness of apprenticeship pathways and the opportunities for vocational qualifications. I will update you on this in future blogs.

Sussex Area Review
The final meeting of all 11 colleges in the Sussex review took place in May and the summary report is due at the end of July. Locally, City College are already in discussions with Northbrook College to merge and a formal consultation process will commence in September.

Apprenticeships and Supported Internships
Please look out for the schools bulletin in September which will give schools an update on the government’s apprenticeship levy which will be implemented by April 2017. For further details on how you can recruit an apprentice within your school please contact Carla Butler who is the council’s Apprenticeship Programme Officer, on 01273 291281.
We are very proud that our Human Resources & Organisational Development team coordinated the recruitment of three supported internships in partnership with Plumpton College this year. The Supported Internship programme is designed to help young people aged 16- 24 with a learning difficulty/disability get into work and become excellent employees. We want to encourage more employers to explore this opportunity and there is more information below regarding the programme, including
details about one of our supported interns, Brandon:

http://wave.brighton-hove.gov.uk/news/mainnews/Pages/SupportedinternshipBrandon.aspx

Goodbye and thank you
This is the time of year where we have to say goodbye to some of our team members and partners. I wanted to thank them formally on behalf of everyone in Families, Children and Learning for their contribution to the lives of young people and their families.

It is always sad to say goodbye to head teachers and college leaders and there are several colleagues moving on at the end of this year. My thanks to colleagues who have contributed so much:
Paula Sargent, who has done an amazing job in Patcham High School, taking it to good, and for her work in the Secondary Schools Partnership. Paula will be doing a range of work next year including more Ofsted inspections. We are also pleased to be welcoming her to our secondary partnership adviser team to do some work on school improvement.

Chris Thomson, principal at BHASVIC, is also leaving. In addition to running an outstanding college he has also contributed to the strategic development of learning in the city including the early development of the learning partnership.

Syb True is moving on from Royal Spa, an outstanding early years environment where she has ensured that our young learners have had the best possible start.

Also to heads who have been supporting other schools, Stuart McConnachie is moving on from the support for Coombe Road – taking it forward on the journey to good.

I also want to thank Mary Ellinger, Early Years Partnership Adviser, for the significant contribution she has made to raising standards and improving quality for our children and young people in Brighton & Hove. She is very highly regarded across Families Children and Learning, the council and our wider partnership. We are all really wondering how we will manage without her! However, we are absolutely delighted that we are not losing her altogether and that she will be staying in the city. She will be an amazing leader at Royal Spa and the provision will go to strength to strength.

Office moves

Teams will start to move out of Kings House on 12th August and into our new office facilities at Hove Town Hall. Most of our Education and Skills services will finish the moves over the summer, so will be working from Hove Town Hall from then. The SEN team are scheduled to move in October. It’s an exciting move for our staff with our technology being updated so that we can work more flexibly in the future. As part of the move to a unified Educational Psychology and Learning Support Service launching in September, the Educational Psychology and Community CAMHS teams are also moving out of Kings House, into a new base at Carden Primary School on 2nd September. We look forward to you all visiting us in our new working bases.

 


Brighton & Hove School Leaders’ Conference
** Save the date**

The annual Leadership conference will be held on Tuesday 4 October 2016, 9am (registration and refreshments from 8.30am) at Bramber House, University of Sussex, Falmer.

Our keynote speaker will be Christine Gilbert CBE, former Her Majesty Chief Inspector (HMCI) 2006-2011.

Head teachers, College Principals and Deputy Head teachers are all invited.

More details will be sent out soon, but please add this date to you diary.



Best wishes,
Jo


Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons


Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

June 2016

Apprenticeships 

Hannah, apprentice and care leaver

Increasing the number of apprenticeships in the city is a top priority for us. I’m delighted we have some amazing apprentices already working with us. It’s a pleasure to be able to showcase Hannah’s story in the interview below. Hannah recently spoke at the Virtual Schools Conference as she is one of the council apprentices who is a care leaver. 

My Name is Hannah and I am 21 years old. I am currently doing a Level 3 Apprenticeship in Customer Service at the registrar’s office in Brighton Town Hall.
What Sort of things does your job involve?
My job involves welcoming visitors, registering Births, Deaths, Marriages, Civil Partnerships etc. and producing legal documents (like birth certificates) in line with statutory requirements .
What did you do before your apprenticeship? 
I did a few low paying jobs, like cleaning and working in a coffee shop. With these jobs I didn’t feel like I was really going to get anywhere and I wanted a role that would help me start a career.
Why did you want this apprenticeship?
I knew I wanted an apprenticeship as soon as I left school, I knew I wanted to get into work and be able to have experience and references instead of just learning things theoretically, like I would have at college. Unfortunately I struggled to find one that I thought I would enjoy.  I came across a Level 2 Customer Service Apprenticeship at Brighton & Hove City Council. It sounded like something a little bit different and something I thought I would enjoy.  Just before the end of my Level 2 Apprenticeship, I was asked to stay on and complete a Level 3. I was really happy to accept the opportunity as it meant better job security (because it was a longer contract) a chance to build on the skills I had gained, and I could stay on with the same team I’d been working with for a year.
For you, what were the main differences between the levels?
For me the main difference in changing levels was that the coursework was a lot more work based – I could give examples in my coursework of things I had experienced at work.  I have a lot more responsibility, for example, soon I will be able to register marriages.
Would you do the next level up?
I would definitely like to do a Level 4 if I am given the chance. The study side of apprenticeships really interests me because I love being able to learn the theory behind the job I am doing, and would make me more employable.
What do you feel you have gained from your apprenticeship?
For me my apprenticeship has not only helped me start a career but also really helped my personal development too. I have much more confidence and am able to take on responsibilities.
What advice would you give to someone thinking about taking on an apprenticeship?
When you are looking for an apprenticeship, remember to go for something that really interests you, not just something that pays well. It’s really important not to get discouraged if you can’t see anything you like. There are so many options out there if you just keep looking! Have confidence in your skills and achievements; don’t underestimate what you can achieve in the future.

Brighton and Hove Education Partnership
On 6 June the Children, Young People and Skills Committee agreed our proposal to begin an engagement with school leaders, governors, parents, young people and other stakeholders regarding the co-construction of a model that formulises our City Education Partnership. The partnership’s purpose is to strengthen the family of schools and further develop our schools led self-improving system, whilst continuing to raise standards. Hilary Ferries will be taking a lead role on this work and will be contacting partners directly to ensure everyone’s view is heard. Our plan is to engage with stakeholders over the next few months and then to develop a model that will go out for consultation in the late autumn. This is an exciting opportunity to develop a deep, robust and purposeful education partnership where we all contribute to sustainable local improvement. It will also help to ensure there is clarity of purpose and roles so we make sense of the different overlapping networks and alliances operating in the new world of education regionally and nationally, so that Brighton and Hove can achieve maximum benefit and future proof our local partnership.

Award Winners – congratulations

Many congratulations to colleagues who won national awards recently. 

Sue Middleton (formerly of Dorothy Stringer) who won Teacher of the Year.

Steve Everard, Premises Manager at West Blatchington, who won staff member.

City Academy Whitehawk, voted the most improved school. 

PACA who were voted Community School of the Year. 

Dorothy Stringer, for School of the Year. 

Kathryn Coleman collecting her award
from NAHT President, Kim Johnson

Congratulations also to Kathryn Coleman (ECaR Teacher) and all the Woodingdean Primary School staff, pupils, families and community for winning a National Reading Recovery School of the Year Award 2016. The theme of Kathryn’s application was: Woodingdean Primary Builds a Reading Community. Her case study highlighted the effectiveness of a whole school approach in developing a reading for pleasure community of successful readers. Work with the local library and community was a feature of the application. The award was presented on Friday 10th June.

Here is a link to the announcement on Institute of Education UCL site here:  http://www.ucl.ac.uk/international-literacy/ilc/events/rr-awards-2016

It is great to see all these achievements celebrated and we are very proud of the individual and whole school success.

Teacher Recruitment
Recruitment of high quality teachers and leaders is a major national challenge and concern. Locally we are beginning to experience some issues too.  To respond to this a discussion took place at the primary heads meeting in the spring term and then my team commissioned a social media recruitment campaign to encourage teachers to come the city. The online social media campaign received 458 'clicks' (people that looked at it). Rachel Simmonds, Headteacher of West Blatchington Primary, will now be following this work up further by asking headteachers whether this translated into successful job applications for new teachers.  If you have any specific recruitment issues and would like to offer further ideas or suggestions then please get in touch with Rachel.

Closing the Gap
Closing the Gap in achievement for our vulnerable groups and ensuring progress for all remains our top priority across all schools and education providers in the city. Congratulations to Bevendean, St Mary Magdalen, Woodingdean and Downs View, where the recent Ofsted reports recognised the work that the schools were doing to close the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. I know most of the secondary schools are starting the ‘Challenge the Gap’ programme in September and I am looking forward to featuring more on this in my future blogs.

I am delighted to say that we have now received the report for both St Mary Magdalen Catholic Primary School and Woodingdean following their inspections in May and they both awarded Good. Congratulations to the teams at both schools.

This month there was an inspection at St Margaret’s.  We are still awaiting the report so I will feed back on this next month.

Youth and Employability Trust 
It was a pleasure to chair this month’s Youth and Employability Trust meeting on behalf of Pinaki. It was a good opportunity for me to meet our youth and employability partners and hear about the positive work that is being developed.  Our vision is to eliminate barriers to work, learning and personal development for young people and adults and the group are working on an exciting and innovative proposal to establish a Youth and Employability Trust as a possible new delivery model for youth and employability services.
This approach has the potential to provide an integrated approach to the youth and employment agenda and include independent information, advice and guidance in the form of an all-age brokerage service, supporting employers and workers / potential workers, and ensure that we have learning and skills opportunities meeting their identified needs.
This approach is bringing together the youth, skills and employability agendas identified by the Children, Young People and Skills Committee. Adopting such an model would enable us to operate in a more dynamic, entrepreneurial way optimising the benefits of both charitable and commercial models to maximise charitable funding and commercial investment and optimise resources to deliver better outcomes.

Volunteer Celebration at Roundabout Children’s Centre

Helen Cowling with volunteers at the children's centre

Volunteers from Roundabout and the Deans Children’s Centre came to a thank you lunch on 8th June as part of the Nationwide Celebrating Volunteers fortnight.  The volunteers were given Certificates of Achievements for volunteering by Helen Cowling, Children’s Centre’s Service Manager. Our volunteers are a great asset and we appreciate all the time they give to us including volunteering in groups, preparing the food bank for families, organising community boards and much more.  Thank you from the     Roundabout & Deans staff team.

Helen Cowling presenting Certificate of Achievement
to volunteer Rachael Tribe

Primary School Athletics

Aldrington Winners

Ellen Mulvihill, Head of Behaviour and Attendance, presented trophies on my behalf at the Brighton and Hove Primary School Athletics at Withdean Stadium on 22 June.  There were 48 schools and around 1600 children taking part over the both days, which is the most schools we have ever had. Ellen commented "It was a wonderful occasion to see the children fully active and participating with energy and enthusiasm in the activities. The commitment of the school staff and parents is commendable to make these fabulous events happen. When we consider how important sport and an active lifestyle will be to the health and happiness of our children, it is crucial that these days are given the attention and focus they deserve".  Well done and congratulations to Emma Greenhough and her team for a great day of school sports!

Pie Corbett: Developing Primary Writing - Schools Supporting Schools Conference

Published work

Talk for Writing, developed by Pie Corbett is powerful because it is based on the principles of how children learn and because it enables children to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally before reading and analysing it and then writing their own version.  We have been running a Brighton & Hove Talk for Writing project here in the city and on 29 June Saltdean primary hosted a celebration event.  Pie Corbett spoke, teachers from some of the schools involved led workshops to share and discuss practice and some of the fantastic writing and over 100 teachers attended.  Pie said how welll our network is developing and has attributed this is part to the commitment and support from Louise Zahra, Reading Recovery Teacher | Every Child a Reader Service Manager and Suzanne Morgan, headteacher at Saltdean.  Suzanne has been invited to apply to be a lead school nationally for this work and we hope that more schools in the city can be involved.  Congratulations to all those involved.  We can see the difference it is making to children's learning.
For more information, the link to the course page is: http://beem.org.uk/Event/30232

More Free Childcare for Working Parents of 3 and 4 year olds
I'm pleased to announce that from September 2017, working parents for three to four year olds will be entitled to an additional 15 hours a week of free childcare.  This is a massive expansion of free provision and will be very popular with parents as it could save them more than £2,500 a year in childcare costs.  Brighton & Hove's early years team has been awarded "early innovator" status with some additional funding to do project work to ensure that there will be enough childcare in the city for parents who want it.  Our online parent survey, looking into likely take-up by parents, has been open for a couple of weeks and to date has had nearly 700 responses.  We are doing more detailed consultation with specific groups of parents including those with English as an additional language, those with SEND children and people living in disadvantaged areas.  Ensuring that there is sufficient supply of childcare is a major piece of work and we are planning events for early years providers including schools and nursery classes to help them change, adapt and expand for the new offer.  There is also likely to be some captial funding available for which we will bid for later in the summer.  If you would like to know more, please contact Caroline Parker, Head of Surestart Service, on 01273 293587 or by email caroline.parker@brighton-hove.gcsx.gov.uk

Strategic meeting with Headteachers and wider education partner

I was delighted to open our Primary Headteacher phase meeting on the 28 June which was well attended. Louisa Scanlon from Public Health updated everyone on the current Public Health activities within schools, and an opportunity for 10 schools to take part in a Biosphere Project. This was followed by Rachel Sheppard and Laura Gibson from Carden Primary and Balfour Primary respectively, who talked about feedback from the PE and School Sports survey and potential pooling of school funding to pay for a sports adviser to primary schools. For more information on any aspect of this or if you are interested in participating please contact Louisa Scanlon on: louisa.scanlon@brighton-hove.gov.uk 

Sam Beal spoke about the new Disability Equality support materials: “Nothing About Me Without Me” http://www.carousel.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/NothingAboutMeWithoutMe_WebResource.pdf and also the need to ensure that if there are any increases in racist incidents, particularly since Brexit, that these are recorded properly. At this challenging time please ensure that Sam and the community safety team are informed of any issues so that they can assist you if necessary.

Martin Kaliszewski provided an excellent overview of RaiseOnline differences in data since the assessment changes. Although some elements are still unknown for EYFS/ KS1 and KS2 SATs, the overview of the format the data will appear was very useful. Unfortunately as the information Martin shared is still in a developmental phase, we do not have slides available to share at this moment - but more in depth information will hopefully be available soon. Martin did suggest that when the data is available it would be advisable for all heads to look at the breakdown results by question (to assist in skills gaps) and be aware of the national comparators as these are not necessarily comparing like for like. (e.g. in the same way that disadvantaged pupils performance locally will be compared to non-disadvantaged pupils nationally a similar set of comparisons may be used for other groups – for example boys locally to girls nationally) More on this interesting subject to follow.

The focus of our Secondary and Continuing Education Partnership meeting in the same week was SEND and funding the challenges that some of our schools are facing.  It was an opportunity to look at the data showing the number of our young people with Education, Health and Care Plans in each school and see the significant differences and discuss the possible reasons for this.  The high numbers in some schools are clearly putting major pressures on the whole school budget.  It was agreed that another session would take place in July with headteachers and college principals to look in more details at the high needs block and possible solutions.

Be the Change Programme
The grand finale took place on June 28th of the Be the Change programme, mounted by Love Local Jobs, an initiative to boost the aspirations and job prospects for young people from nine of the Brighton and Hove secondary schools. The students had the opportunity throughout the programme to work with business volunteers on six separate occasions as a mixture of day long events, one to one mentoring sessions and workplace visits.

One of the key aims of the programme was to help young people value themselves and others and to develop skills which will enable them to take responsibility for their lives and ambitions. Over 60 young people completed the programme and attended the Award Ceremony, hosted by one of the sponsors, Sussex University’s Widening Participation team. Most young people talked about gaining confidence, gaining a greater understanding about the workplace, addressing their own behaviour within the school setting and taking more responsibility for their actions.

All the business mentors talked about how proud they were of their mentees and how inspiring they had been. It’s great to hear such positive feedback from employers about our young people in the city.

Sir Rod Aldridge Cricket Centre Official Opening: 

Despite appalling weather for late June, the official opening of the Sir Rod Aldridge Cricket Centre at Brighton Aldridge Community Academy took place last night.  It was a pleasure to attend and be shown the amazing facilities on offer to young people at BACA and all our young people across the city and the wider community.  The £1.8m Cricket Centre has been developed with Sussex Cricket to provide a home for the Aldridge Cricket Academy, a base for Women and Girls' Cricket and Portslade Cricket Club.  Do get in touch with BACA and go and visit and see this fabulous resource.

Best wishes,
Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

Children’s Parade

 

Childrens Parade 2016

May began with the start of the festival and the arrival of the annual Children’s Parade. It truly grows from strength to strength every year. I was so proud of all our schools and wider partners, who participated in the amazing, creative displays of colour.

I also had the great pleasure of hearing our talented young musicians from the music & arts service taking part in several events. Beginning with the Children’s Parade, the Brass Ensemble lead the Parade with a collection of Ska tunes and shortly after the Brighton & Hove Youth Concert Band and Big Band took to the Fringe City Stage on New Road. Pitch Perfect also saw music students on three different ‘pitches’ around the around the Royal Pavilion Estate with performances of acoustic pop and folk music in the Brighton Dome café-bar and chamber music in the Brighton Museum and Royal Pavilion music room.

Laura van der Heijden performed with the Brighton Youth Orchestra at All Saints Church, in an exciting programme that included music by Gabrieli, Copland and Rutter. In another ‘first’ for this year’s Festival, young flute-players performed their own Indian-inspired composition as part of the Dr Blighty installation in the Royal Pavilion Garden.

Huge congratulations to all those who took part in this years 50^th Brighton Festival.

Brass Ensemble

Annual Report of the Director of Public Health 2015/16 - social media

Tom Scanlon our previous Director of Public Health, managed to launched the 2015/16 annual report before he left. This edition covers the impact of social media, through YouTube videos and online content. In recent years, the role of on-line behaviours, resources and in particular social media in the way we live our lives, has come increasingly to the fore. In Brighton & Hove this has been particularly apparent in our public health work with partners in local schools. To find out more take a look using the hyperlink above.

Ofsted have been frequent visitors to our city schools this half term. I am delighted to say we have now received reports for Benfield and Bevendean who had OFSTED last month and they were judged to be good and the Jeanne Saunders Centre has maintained its outstanding. Congratulations to all the teams.

This month there have been inspections at Woodingdean, St Mary Magdalen Catholic Primary School and  Downs View. Adrian has been told that the judgement of outstanding is not confidential – so congratulations to Downs View. I will feed back about the other two schools next month when their reports will be published.

Our link HMI, Clive Close, came for his termly visit on Monday 9th May. As well as receiving termly updates on Prevent and school improvement, Clive also spoke about  50 headteachers about the new(ish) short inspections and how they work. I have heard from several of you that this was helpful. Many thanks to PACA for hosting this event.

LA SEND Inspection

Two weeks of May have been taken up by our LA OfSTED Inspection of SEND. We got the anticipated call on Monday 16th May and five inspectors arrived on Monday 23rd May, with a couple more to follow later in the week. Regan and I have been very impressed with how our staff and partnership organisations have come together to prepare and present collaboratively to the inspectors. Thanks also to those schools, nurseries and other provisions across the city who have participated and been visited by the team to provide evidence. We now wait in anticipation for the outcome.

National Reading Recovery

I’d like to congratulation Kathryn Coleman (ECaR Teacher) and all the Woodingdean Primary School staff, pupils, families and community for winning a National Reading Recovery School of the Year Award 2016. The theme of Kathryn’s application was: Woodingdean Primary Builds a Reading Community. Her case study highlighted the effectiveness of a whole school approach in developing a Reading for Pleasure community of successful readers. Work with the local Library and community was a feature of the application. The Reading Recovery Awards, organised by the International Literacy Centre, celebrate and honour practitioners who have made outstanding contribution to children's literacy through Reading Recovery. The award will be presented on Friday 10th June.

Link to announcement on Institute of Education UCL site here:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/international-literacy/ilc/events/rr-awards-2016

Well done Kathryn, you and the school team have worked incredibly hard to provide excellent opportunities for the pupils and families at Woodingdean Primary school.

Equalities Work and Visit From Stonewall

I was delighted to attend a morning at Varndean with national charity Stonewall looking at our best and innovative practice. Staff and pupils from St Luke's Primary, Queens Park Primary, Varndean and Dorothy Stringer Schools talked about the work they had been doing to value family diversity, challenge gender stereotypes, prevent and respond to homophobia, biphobia and transphobia and support lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans young people. I was impressed to hear about the LGBT student groups and staff allies groups that are established and forming in our secondary schools. There is a lot of work to be proud of and more work we need to do to ensure all staff in all our schools give these positive messages and challenge inappropriate language.

BIG Cookathon

Stanford Reception Class enjoying baking

The whole of Stanford Infants School took part in this National Event. Children, families and members of the community competed against budding cooks across the country in a healthy eating challenge!

Brighton and Hove School Meals Team and Eden Foodservice fully supported this event by organising workshops for all the children to take part in.  Reception pupils made some amazing bread rolls for the whole school, Year 1 helped by chopping vegetables for main meal a mountain of peppers, spring onions, parsley etc cut safely with kitchen scissors, Year 2 made dessert - fruit kebabs made from Melon, Grapes and Bananas.

A big thank you to Jamila and the kitchen team, the school, pupils and parents that made this such an amazing day. A total of 230 pupils plus adults enjoyed eating the lunch they had prepared on the day!

Standard Attainments Tests (SATS)

During May, all Primary and Junior Schools across the city successfully administered the new end of Key Stage 2 SATs. This current Year 6 cohort is the first to have been tested against the new National Curriculum Programmes of Study. Despite these new assessment procedures attracting considerable national media attention and coverage this year, schools were still able to effectively implement the tests in line with statutory expectations. As part of the Local Authority’s statutory role, LA officers observed the SATs taking place in a sample of ten schools and saw good practice in all the schools and all children doing their very best. Results are planned to be released for schools on Tuesday 5 July.

Secondary Admissions Engagement Phase

After 7 weeks, 24 public meetings, attended by approximately 820 people, 3 focus groups with pupils in Years 3 and 4, 1 focus group with pupils in Year 7, 1644 online responses, 731 Years 3 and 4 responses and 122 direct email submissions the engagement phase of the secondary school admission arrangements work has been completed. It has been a privilege for Richard Barker and myself to listen to so many people’s views and suggestions that will help the process going forward.

There now follows a period of further discussion with the working group  to consider the responses received and to shape the proposal that will be formally consulted upon in the autumn.

Mile Oak School 50^th Birthday

Mile Oak Children 1966

Mile Oak Primary celebrated their 50^th birthday on Wednesday 25 May and Hilary Ferries our Head of Standards and Achievement attended to celebrate with them. Pupils, staff and guests took part in the celebrations, with pupils dressing up in authentic 1960’s clothes and singing songs of the era. Attendees at the celebrations included Trudy Roberts, the current Deputy Headteacher at Stanford Juniors who went to Mile Oak Primary School as a pupil but also started her teaching career there.

During the afternoon a time capsule which had been buried on the school’s 30^th birthday was unearthed and they read out what Trudy had written when she was an Newly Qualified Teacher there.

Former Pupil and Staff Member

Update on post 16 Learning and Skills

The council will be hosting a group of students from Patcham High and Varndean school on Friday 10 June as part of the Be the Change programme, and students will have the opportunity to quiz Geoff Raw, the Chief Executive, as well as a tour of the jail cells under Brighton Town Hall!

The Employer Pledge was generated by the Employer Skills Task Force, a group of employers committed to creating work opportunities for young people in the city. There have been over 100 pledges made, and employers are being linked with schools to arrange workplace visits, enterprise events and talks in schools. If any school is interested in an activity, do get in touch with Stephanie Baker who is the post 16 team apprentice and she will help you. Stephanie.Baker@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Work continues in exploring alternative provision in the city, for those aged 14-16 and those in the post 16 age group. We are working with a number of providers such as City College, Sussex Cricket Foundation and DV8 who are currently devising programmes for alternative courses, part time or full time.

In post 16 independent providers come and go, and an updated leaflet on Entry and level 1 provision will be ready for GCSE results day aiming to give a comprehensive picture across the city for those learners who might need support in considering their options.

St Bernadette's RC Primary Achieve Silver History Quality Mark

St Bernadette's Pupils bringing history to life

The Quality Mark is an award that recognises the excellence of history provision in a school. It assesses and values the history provision of the teacher, their department and the school and what is being offered to young people. We are incredibly proud of St Bernadette's achievement  of this award and it’s brilliant to see the pupils taking such an active interest in History. Well done to all involved!

Governance, Strategy & Partnership

Geoff Raw (Chef Executive) and
 Dennis Muir (Governor at Carlton Hill Primary School)

It was great to see such a high turn-out from governors and clerks at our termly GSP meeting at City College this week.  99% of the city’s schools were represented and we were pleased to have the council’s Chief Executive Geoff Raw opening the meeting. He presented certificates to governors who have successfully completed the Development Programme for Chairs and Aspiring Chairs from the National College for Teaching and Leadership. The Governor Support team will soon be starting the fifth cohort of this successful programme and it was really encouraging to hear from participants how useful the programme had been in developing their leadership skills.

Participants also received updates from LA colleagues on the Prevent Strategy and Enterprise Governors, before taking part in an extended session about the implications of the recent White Paper ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere’. We looked at the opportunities and challenges that this will bring and explored different partnership models to be considered in order to ensure schools are supported in to the future with a continued focus on high and improving standards. Thank you to everyone who took part and we will be in touch about further engagement activities soon.

Families, Children and Learning

I am delighted that the first phase of our council restructure is complete and we are now the Families, Children and Learning Directorate and our branch name will now be known as Education and Skills in recognition of its additional and wider areas of focus and responsibility. 

I am also delighted that a number of managers and services have come to join us. A warm welcome to Debbie Corbridge, the Integrated Team for Families Manager, Chris Parfitt, the Youth Service Manager, Caroline Parker the Head of Sure Start and their teams.

Also joining the team from Human Resources is Carla Butler who will be working on the apprenticeship programme with the Post 16 Team.

Goodbye to Steve Barton who will be retiring from the council after many years of excellent service across a range of roles. Under his leadership a new Early Help Hub has been established, we achieved a 100% of ‘troubled families turned around,’ we managed to make significant changes to our Children’s Centres and also carried out a full review of our Youth Service. We wish him well into the future.

School & College Leaders’ Business Meeting

A heads up that we will be holding an event for Head Teachers and senior School and College Leaders on Digital Creativity in the classroom on Friday 24 June. Using digital creativity in the classroom: Digital creativity is about using digital tools that challenge, encourage and foster a sense of enthusiasm for learning.

We have been invited by the Economic and Social Engagement Team from the University of Brighton to hold our summer term meeting in their Creativity Centre. We will be joined by Phil Jones from Wired Sussex about digital creativity and how Brighton & Hove schools might learn from this for their own practice. This will be followed by several workshops where schools will have the opportunity to see and try out some of the best practice that is being developed in our schools. Look out for the invite from Schools Training.

To book onto this event please contact: schools.training@brighton-hove.gov.uk Tel: 01273 293511 or log in and book directly on www.beem.org.uk.  Please book on by Monday 11 June to confirm a place.