LGBT History month

We have now come to the end of the annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans history month. Lots of activity took place across the city and in our schools and education provision to mark this important awareness-raising and celebratory month.

This year the focus of LGBT History Month is on ‘Geography: Mapping the World’, especially now that Australia and up to 16 more central and south American nations will be able to enjoy same sex weddings. 

Varndean’s suggested LGBT books

In February we also remembered two special events: the 30th anniversary of the passing of Section 28, which prohibited local authorities from disseminating materials that ‘promoted homosexuality’ in schools; and the 40th anniversary of the murder by shooting of Harvey Milk, the USA’s first out-gay elected councillor. Both actions changed the face of LGBT political engagement and activism profoundly. On a happier note, the rainbow flag was launched as a symbol of LGBT unity and equality forty years ago in 1978.

Whole Family Working

It is the responsibility of all agencies to work together to support and safeguard children and young people. This includes ensuring that help and support is provided to children and their families at the earliest opportunity available and when concerns first start to emerge. We are currently consulting on a new Whole Family Working Strategy and Threshold Document. As part of our consultation, it was good to join professional partners and councillors from across the city at our Children's Services Partnership Forum at the cricket club this week to debate our whole family approach and shape our strategy going forward. The consultation will be open until Friday the 2^nd of March 2018, so please take a look and let us know what you think.

Youth Cross Party Working Group

It was good to join our young people and councillors for the Youth Cross Party Working Group. There was a good debate on how to spend £90,000 additional funding for the Neighbourhood Youth Grants programme agreed in the Council’s budget for 2018/19. Ten young people sit on the group and represent the Youth Council, Children in Care Council and Youth Groups across the city, together with one Councillor from each of the three political groups who attend the Committee.  The Group is jointly chaired by one of the young people from the Youth Council and Councillor Dan Chapman, the Chair of the Committee.  

Working in Education Recruitment Fair

Brighton & Hove Education Partnership is hosting a 'Working in Education' Recruitment Fair on Saturday the 10^th of March 2018, from 10am to 3pm at the Jury’s Inn, Brighton Waterfront. Recruitment and retention is one of the top priorities of this city partnership. The fair will promote all the opportunities Brighton & Hove has for those who wish to work or volunteer in education. There will be stalls and talks throughout the day, so that attendees can hear from colleagues in schools, colleges, universities, early years settings, teaching school alliances and council teams that support schools. If you have vacancies in your service that you would like to publicise at the event, please contact Sharon MacKenzie on schools.training@brighton-hove.gov.uk. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Brighton & Hove Education Partnership

The partnership is working very well with positive engagement from all partners. At the next meeting the board will be looking at our strategy to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children which is a priority focus for the city. The Partnership is beginning to look at developing a work-life balance 'pledge' that schools and colleges might want to sign up to and there may be an opportunity for some shared-ownership housing for some teachers in the city. 

Please have a read of ‘Optimism of the will: the development of local area-based education partnerships, a think-piece’ by Christine Gilbert, which talks about the national development of education partnerships. 

Link: http://www.lcll.org.uk/publications.html

School Governance

This Saturday the 3^rd of March we’ll be holding the Annual Governors Conference at the University of Sussex Conference Centre. We’ll be exploring the study ‘Who governs our schools? Trends, tensions and opportunities’ with the author Dr Tony Breslin. 

Dr Tony Breslin is a public policy analyst specialising in education and par­ticipation. The Director at Breslin Public Policy Limited, he is the author of two recent RSA publications, 'Who Governs Our Schools? Trends, Tensions and Opportunities' (2017), which is the outcome of an 18 month scoping study into school governance in England, and 'A Place for Learning: putting learning at the heart of citizenship, civic identity and community life' (2016) which advocates a community-based approach to lifelong learning. I'm looking forward to listening and learning together on Saturday with governors across the City.

Employer Speed Dating Event

‘I know what an interview is like now - I was very proud because I used very good words and good clear speech’

‘I liked dressing up in smart clothes and liked being prepared for a real interview’

These were some of the comments made by students who attended our Special Schools Employer Speed Dating Event last month. Schools involved were Patcham House, Downs Park and Cedar Centre and local charity Team Domenica. Staff who supported the Y10 and Y11 students found it a unique opportunity for their students. It gave them a real taste of an interview with outside people. The event gave students a chance to meet ‘real employers’ in an interview style setting, each student went through a series of interviews with the employers where they were able to ask questions and also develop their communications skills. For the students, being out of their normal learning environment and attending their very first interview was a big challenge, but after the event the students left with a confidence boost and took away lots of practical advice from employers.

The employers came from variety of sectors and included Brighton Dome, Sussex Cricket Club and JobCentre+. They all commented on the confidence and determination young people had and how much young people improved as the interviews progressed.

One employer said ‘This event has shown me that this skills practice is even more important for the futures of those with additional needs, and I'll ensure I prioritise it when offering employment support to the special schools I work with in Brighton & Hove’.

For more information, contact Shiromi Cabraal, 16-19 Project Officer: shiromi.cabraal@brighton-hove.gov.uk, 01273 29 0735. 

 

Cardinal Newman Catholic School were inspected in January. They were judged by Ofsted as Good. Here are some quotes from the Ofsted report:

‘The headteacher and other leaders have successfully improved the quality of education for pupils and students since the last inspection. They understand the school’s strengths and weaknesses well.

Pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding. A strong sense of community permeates the school which pupils and students value and contribute to willingly.’

Take a look at this very positive report. 

Dr James Kilmartin, head of Cardinal Newman and students celebrating their Good Ofsted rating

Goldstone Primary were also inspected recently and we are awaiting the report. I look forward to feeding back next time. Longhill High School have also had a positive HMI monitoring visit that went very well.

Primary Indoor Athletics

School Games Indoor Athletics event at BACA

Well done to the schools that took part in the Indoor Athletics competitions. 30 schools and 552 young people took part, with 52 Sports Leaders running the event. We had an extremely close competition this year. Well done to Cottesmore who will now go forward to the School Games Final on the 8th of March at the Triangle Leisure Centre to represent Brighton & Hove.

For more information, contact Emma Greenough, Brighton & Hove School Games Organiser & Active for Life Manager Children & Young People Tel:  01273 292569 emma.greenough@brighton-hove.gov.uk  

School Games Indoor Athletics event at BACA

Services to Schools

I’m delighted to let you know that Sharon Mackenzie has been appointed to provide the strategic oversight for traded services for schools during Roger Snell’s secondment to Orbis, joining Yaz Jenner who is taking on the operational aspect of the role. Sharon has now returned to full-time work in Education & Skills and the extra day will be used for this role, thus enabling her to still carry out the Governor Services Manager and NQT Induction Co-ordinator roles.

If you have any questions please contact Sharon on 01273 293465 or Yaz on 01273 293511.  They have set up a new inbox for any queries relating to Services to Schools: beem@brighton-hove.gov.uk.

My Fair Lady at Varndean

Thank you to Varndean Secondary School for inviting me to their annual show this year, 'My Fair Lady'. I was blown away by the professionalism and talent of the young people who performed. It’s so good to see the arts being promoted and celebrated in our schools.

New Statutory Guidance

The new statutory guidance from the DfE was published this week: ‘Promoting the education of looked-after children and previously looked-after children.’

I am very pleased that this updated guidance now recognises that children previously in care (pic) have the same needs as children that are currently in care (cic) and should therefore be given every opportunity to reach their full potential.

The guidance describes the means by which the local authority discharges its statutory responsibility to promote the educational achievement of pic children. The local authority will be a source of advice and information to help parents to advocate effectively for their pic children. 

Other key messages from the guidance also include an emphasis on:

• a joined-up approach to addressing the mental health needs of cic and pic;
• greater recognition of the educational and emotional needs of Asylum-seeking and refugee children;
• the importance of using the PP+ grant to fund interventions that have a strong evidence-base of success.

Overall, the guidance promotes a greater awareness of the varying needs of our young people and demonstrates how working together is essential to securing excellent outcomes for any child who has been in care.

Here is a link to the guidance document.

Congratulations to Louise Cook

Following interviews on the 20th and the 21st of February, I’m delighted that Louise Cook has been appointed as Executive Head of the new SEMH Hub. The hub is part of the City’s new vision for special provision and comprises Homewood College, Brighton & Hove PRU and the Connected Hub. Louise is currently the headteacher of the Connected Hub. She will take up her new post after Easter. Colleagues will no doubt want to congratulate Louise and offer her best wishes in her new role.

Louise Cook

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons
Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

Success in Early Years

I’d like to congratulate the work of our Early Years team. From September 2017 working parents of three and four year olds have been entitled to an additional 15 hours free childcare a week (the extended entitlement) in addition to their universal entitlement of 15 hours free childcare, making a total of 30 hours a week. The early years and childcare team and the Family Information Service have been working for months to ensure that the scheme is a success in the city. The first national data published by the Department for Education shows that 1,206 three and four year olds took up their extended entitlement in the city in November 2017, which is 107 per cent1 of those with an eligibility code. 

Of 152 local authorities we are eighth in the country and top in the south east. The average figure for the south east is 85 per cent, and for the country as a whole it is 90 per cent. In addition our local data shows that all early years settings open at least 30 hours a week (except for nurseries in independent schools) are offering the extended entitlement, as well as 45 childminders – that’s 33 per cent of childminders in Brighton & Hove.

While the scheme is very challenging for providers, particularly in terms of government funding rates, many are appreciative of the support offered by the early years team – one provider recently emailed to say:

‘As a team, you are very supportive, always answer quickly, seem to genuinely want to help me, and never make me feel as stupid as I feel, with forms!! Thanks x’           

For more information, please contact Vicky Jenkins, Childcare Strategy Manager – Free Entitlement. vicky.jenkins@brighton-hove.gcsx.gov.uk

¹The figure is more than 100% because of children coming into the city from East and West Sussex for their free childcare

Research and Evidence Based Practice

Headteachers at the Research and Evidence Based Practice

It was good to see over 60 heads and senior leaders at the school and college leaders’ conference on 19 January at Sussex University. The theme was ‘evidence based research: why and how?’ and we welcomed the Deputy Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Fund, James Turner, who talked about the value and potential that evidence based research has in raising achievement for all pupils, and particularly the most vulnerable. Jonathan Cooper, Headteacher from St Luke’s, spoke about how he has embedded a culture of action research into Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and then we had a series of tabletop presentations from Goldstone, Cardinal Newman, St Luke’s and the University of Sussex. We are keen to promote the use of research and action research in the city and will be forming a small working group to take this forward. Please contact Hilary if you are interested in joining this group or have ideas about next steps the partnership could take for research. hilary.ferries@brighton-hove.gov.uk 

James Turner speaking at the research conference

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) have released a number of reports focused on outcomes of research into disadvantaged and the attainment gap. Take a look at their website.

Funding for School Improvement

We were delighted to hear this month that the Brighton & Hove Education Partnership have been successful in their bids to the national strategic school improvement fund. Our new teaching schools led these bids, working together with our LA team and schools to agree priorities and come up with a plan to improve outcomes. The two bids bring more than half a million pounds into city schools to support KS2 maths and to improve disadvantaged outcomes. Congratulations to Sussex Coast and Pavilions and Downs teaching schools for their partnership approach. The maths bid will build on existing school to school support as Saltdean and Coldean will be supporting other schools, the University of Brighton will be providing a lesson study approach and we hope to work with the Maths Hub. The second bid focuses on disadvantage, tackling attendance and persistent absence and will include mentoring, parental engagement, governors’ accountability and will be employing ‘nudge technique’.

Poverty Proofing

The ‘Poverty Proofing the School Day’ initiative is going very well. 60% of schools have signed up so far. There are audits every week this term and next. I would like to thank schools for their enthusiasm and commitment to the project. Several heads have said to me that the audit has been helpful to hear the voices of all the children and young people and to look at their practice through the lens of poverty. A great deal of positive practice has been identified in our schools. There are also emerging themes for development such as planning out school trips across the year to ensure parents can budget, ensuring that families that struggle with money can access clubs and strategically, how best to provide free school meal for all KS1 pupils for trips. There is still time to sign up for the autumn term or spring term 2019. Just contact Hilary Ferries. hilary.ferries@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Awards for making a big difference

Geoff Raw, Chief Executive of Brighton & Hove Council, and Councillor Warren Morgan recently hosted the Council’s Big Difference awards, celebrating the hard working and dedicated staff across all directorates in the council. We are so proud of Shirley Vanstaaden, Receptionist at Hollingdean Children’s Centre, who  won the individual award for her work to set up a low cost healthy café at the centre for the local community.

Shirley Vanstaaden with Steph Lakelin (the Children’s Centre Manager), Geoff Raw, Councillor Warren Morgan and Mrs Maureen Chowen, the High Sheriff of East Sussex.

Our congratulations also to Ben Cox, one of our Family Coaches and Vikki Witham, a Practice Manager at Drove Road for being highly commended for their work. We also had a number of teams and individuals from across Families, Children & Learning nominated. We are so pleased to see all of your hard work being recognised and celebrated. Full details can be seen here on the Wave.

Congratulations to our School Meals Team

Susie Haworth from the School Meals Team

Susie Haworth, our School Meals Team Manager, is the first 2018 winner of the city’s prestigious Food Hero award for helping thousands of children enjoy their daily lunch. Susie has made the school meals healthier, by reducing the amount of meat served, the amount of sugar in desserts and by removing trans-fats, GMO’s and artificial additives. The team has introduced Fairtrade bananas, local free-range eggs, sustainable MSC fish and serves only British Red Tractor meat. Well done Susie and the school meals team. 

Read more about the award and the Food Partnership here.

I’m delighted to share with you that the team of students from Varndean School did superbly on Tuesday 23^rd to win the regional play off of the Premier League Enterprise Challenge. They will now be one of only six schools involved in the national final at Ernest and Young’s offices in London in April. You can read more by clicking here.

Students from the Varndean football team celebrating making it to the national finals

Also, our Premier League Primary Stars case study video, featuring Cadogan from Coombe Road Primary, is now ‘live’ on the PL’s website and can be viewed by clicking here.

BEST week at Moulsecoomb Primary

During week 8^th-12^th January 2018, Moulsecoomb celebrated BEST Week (Book, Eat, Sleep and Talk) an exciting week where the School Meals Service (Susie Haworth) and our School Meals Contractor Autograph supported the school. We delivered Hungry Caterpillar Workshops for Reception pupils, Eatwell Guide sessions for year 1 pupils and parents/guardians were invited to come and try a school lunch.

The picture shows reception pupils after reading the book, they talked about different fruits and vegetables and the 5 A DAY message. Pupils were given a selection of fruits and vegetables to make faces with on the paper plates. They then tried the fruits and vegetables and talked about the taste and flavours. This was a great way to encourage the younger pupils to try new fruits and vegetables, which many of them did. Spinach seemed to be a firm favourite in the first group!

Moulsecoomb reception pupils making fruit and vegetable faces

The year 1 classes took part in the Eatwell Guide sessions and were given an Eatwell Guide activity sheet to complete. Amy Glass, nutritionist for Autograph was very impressed with the pupils’ knowledge, particularly in the second year 1 class she visited, who had a great understanding of the food groups.

Sam and the kitchen team at the school served a total of 70 meals to parents – a fantastic take up of the offer, one pupil said it was their best day ever to have their mum come to lunch and many of the parents commented on how different school lunches are compared to when they were at school – phew!

All in all a fantastic week of food, fun and activities with very important messages at its core and a big thank you to Caroline Gutteridge who organised it all and for inviting us to participate.

We have had an unusually quiet time with Ofsted recently, after a very busy November. Only Goldstone Primary and Cardinal Newman have been inspected this month. I look forward to sharing their results with you in my February blog.

For those who might be interested in some bedtime reading, this guide gives an overview of the data contained in the inspection data summary report (IDSR) for primary and secondary schools and information to assist in interpreting the charts.

 Holocaust Memorial Day 2018

The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on the 27th of January each year. It’s a time for everyone to pause to remember the millions of people who were murdered or whose lives have been changed beyond recognition during the Holocaust, Nazi persecution and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. 

The Brighton & Hove Holocaust Education Project Group worked with two local schools to organise programmes on the 24th and 25th of January featuring talks on the ‘kindertransport’; the Jewish Experience; the Sinti Roma experience; poetry writing and presentations of students’ artwork and poetry, and dance. 

Young Carers Day

Jo Lyons introducing the event and welcoming the carers and families

On Thursday the 25^th the council, along with the Carers Centre, Young Carers Project and NHS marked national Young Carers Day by hosting an event for Young Carers and their Families in the Council Chambers, Brighton Town Hall. It was an opportunity to acknowledge the challenges young carers and their families face in addition to celebrating their achievements. Young carers often miss out on fun activities and seeing friends because of their caring role. They often don’t do as well at school as their peers, and are more likely to have issues with school absence, bullying and emotional or mental health needs. The event highlighted the importance of the support young carers and their families receive from work carried out by the Young Carers Project and council services. It was such a positive evening,  I was privileged to attend, congratulations to those young people that won awards.

If you have identified a young carer and would like to find out more about what support they could access, or make a referral, please follow this link for further information https://carershub.co.uk/

  

Mayor Mo Marsh presenting a certificate to one of the young carers

Thank you to Debbie Corbridge, Mayor Mo Marsh, Councillor Dan Chapman, Siobhan Melia, Katy Razavi and all staff for their involvement.

Welcome and Goodbyes  

Fifi Bula, Apprentice Business Support Administrator, joined our service as an apprentice supporting our traded services work, as well as working with colleagues in IT. Fifi has been integral in the rollout of BEEM and providing ongoing support for schools. We are very proud that she will be moving on to a higher level apprenticeship within the council and pass on our best wishes in her future role. Fifi will be joining the Performance team supporting a number of key projects including the roll-out of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision.  

Fifi Bula, Apprentice Business Support Administrator

The Virtual School team have a new Lead, Sam Wilson, who joined us this month. Sam graduated from the University of Bradford with a degree in Biomedical Sciences and from Kings College, London with a Masters in Neuroscience. Sam joins the Virtual School with a wealth of educational experience; teaching in London and West Sussex for the past twenty four years, and has a passion for improving attainment for young people who are in care and those that have been in care. Sam strongly believes that children in care and those previously in care deserve the absolute best; before we even meet them they have faced a myriad of challenges.

As Lead for the Virtual School, it will be part of Sam’s role to constantly support and challenge the progress of children who are or who have been in care so that they reach their full potential.

Sam says ‘it is an unfortunate fact that children in care make less progress but as foster carers, teachers and corporate parents who have the highest aspirations for our young people, we can make such a difference’.

 

Sam Wilson, Virtual School team lead

As many of you will now know, Regan Delf, our Assistant Director for Health, SEN and Disability, has decided to retire at the end of April. She has made a significant contribution to the needs of our children and young people with SEN and disabilities and positively lead the SEND strategy across the city. We’ll wish her a good farewell nearer the time, but she will be very much missed across the city.

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons
Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

Happy Christmas

Wishing you a Happy Christmas 

and good wishes for the New Year

from

Jo Lyons

and the

Education & Skills team

Schools Christmas Concert

A highlight of my week was attending this year’s Schools Christmas Concert. A spectacular performance by over 1,500 children and young people from 44 schools across the city. This event is a great example of our Brighton & Hove Education Partnership working together to show its very best practice. Congratulations to all the young singers and musicians, the Music and Arts service and the schools for their hard work and creative performances. As well as the amazing choir, we heard the Brighton & Hove Big Band, Brighton Youth Orchestra, and Orchestra 360. My favourite of the night was ‘No Room at the Inn’ by J Redwood with Cedar Centre and Downs View School. Also so good to see everyone using Makaton, even the audience!

Christmas Concert School Choirs

Merry Christmas, Everyone! https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/940342242337804293

Longhill High School - Be the Change Programme

Graham Moore and students from Longhill High School

Volunteers from Brighton’s business community were touched by the honest and emotional stories from 13 and 14 year olds from Longhill High School who stood up and talked about their life experiences and day to day challenges at the one off Be the Change event at the school which was organised and managed by LoveLocalJobs.com.

Student from Longhill High School presenting to the room

Almost 100 students and 25 business volunteers from organisations such as Southern Water, American Express and Focus Group took part in activities that focussed on happiness, confidence, hope, relationships and employability and many of them bravely spoke about the very personal issues which they feel are holding them back. The central aim of Be the Change is to encourage young people to aspire to a brighter future and discuss the issues they need to overcome in order to achieve that goal, with the support of business professionals from the local business community.

Group work with business guides and students from Longhill High School

Jo Ellis, Head of Year 9 from Longhill High School said: ‘Brilliant Day! To see students feeling safe and secure, being honest and open with their peers about their own insecurities was amazing. I have never seen so many of these students engaged and listening so intently all day. I have been inspired as a teacher by the skill demonstrated by the Be the Change team – they really did have a huge impact on every young person in the room. I would definitely recommend Be the Change for all year 9 students.’

Teaching Schools

The two teaching schools in the city, Pavilion and Downs Teaching School Alliance and the Sussex Coast Teaching School Alliance are both developing their offers to schools locally and beyond. Both teaching school alliances in partnership with the Local Authority have put in bids for the DfE’s Strategic School Improvement Fund for maths at KS2 and behaviour and attendance at KS4. We will know whether these have been successful in early January.

Pavilion and Downs are now offering a range of courses and opportunities using expert teachers from across the five member schools. These include coaching for staff and 'leading for Characterful Schools'.
Sussex Coast are taking part in the EEF project; 'School Partnership Programme', which enables colleagues to be fully trained in supporting and challenging other schools. They are also delivering a suite of leadership programmes in partnership with the Institute of Education.
Find out more about the opportunities they offer on their websites; http://www.pavilionanddowns.co.uk/ and https://sussexcoasttsa.co.uk/brighton-hove/primary/sctsa

Congratulations to Carden Nursery and Primary School

Carden has become one of the first schools in England to win a new national award for making a commitment to develop its students to be the best they can be in competitive school sport.

School Games Mark platinum winners, Carden Primary School

They are one of only 104 schools in the country to receive the special School Games Platinum Award. They have been rewarded for their commitment to the development of sport across schools and into the community. They have shown consistently high-levels of enthusiasm and commitment to school sport.

Helen Longton-Howorth, Head Teacher said: ‘I am so pleased and proud that our fantastic PE team and children who have worked tirelessly to achieve this award have been successful. It is testament to our hugely successful sports and PE programme which is so beneficial to all our students.’

Well done, Carden. We are very proud of your success.

Youth Cross Party Working Group

The first meeting on the Youth Cross Party Group took place on 13 December. The aim of the group is to explore long-term arrangements for youth provision in the city and a governance model that includes the voice of young people. Nine young people attended from a range of youth organisations including Brighton Youth Centre, the Hangleton and Knoll Project, the Children in Care Council, the Youth Council and AudioActive. The meeting was chaired by Councillor Dan Chapman and also attended by Councillors Vanessa Brown and Alex Phillips, and our Executive Director of Families, Children and Learning Pinaki Ghoshal. The group discussed how it will work in the future including how to feed in views from more young people across the city. The group also discussed the proposals for a Youth Portal to bring together information on activities for young people. The next meeting will be held in January and look at existing youth services in more detail and priorities for future work.

My visit to Patcham High

The Bridge Centre at Patcham High

Thank you to John McKee at Patcham High for welcoming me to the school this month. During my visit it was positive to see how the school is developing new provision and intervention at their Bridge Centre to support the social and emotional needs of young people and continuing the development of the school’s inclusive practice. Patcham are working closely with Albion in the Community to support the development of the Bridge. It was good to meet Laura Sourbutts who is the Senior Learning Mentor at the Bridge and hear how passionate she is about the work and meeting the needs of the young people. 

Patcham books

The Skills & Employment Team

The Skills & Employment Team co-ordinated a Rapid Response Employment Event with the DWP (Department of Work & Pensions) for staff made redundant from Palmer & Harvey at Jubilee Library on 11 December 2017. Palmer & Harvey, one of the UK’s largest private companies, went into administration with 2,500 immediate job losses a fortnight ago. Locally this has affected 160 people who live in BN postcodes. Barclays, Ocado, Legal & General & Parker Building Supplies were among the employers who attended, plus LoveLocalJobs and a range of recruitment agencies. Expert help was also at hand with face-to-face interviews and help with C.V. writing. The DWP & Citizens Advice Bureau were there to offer advice on the benefits system, and the changes with the rollout of Universal Credit in Brighton & Hove. Independent and college training providers also attended to let people know about course and re-training opportunities.

Rapid Response Employment Event at Jubilee Library

The Skills & Employment Team, led by Rachel Carter, works to support and sustain adult skills in the city and to achieve the objectives of the City Employment & Skills Plan. Many thanks to all the council staff who rallied round to make this event happen in a week and the library service who gave us free use of conference facilities. We could not have run this event without the team of apprentices Ella, Mairna & Harriet who were so helpful and flexible.

Lots of our schools have been inspected in the last month, and we’ve had the results back for a number of them.

I’m delighted to announce that Westdene Primary, Cottesmore St Marys, Coldean Primary School, Patcham High and The BPRU were all graded as Good once again in their last Ofsted inspections. Congratulations to headteachers, school staff, children and governors.

All reports are available on the Ofsted website: https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/

Balfour Primary also had an inspection this half term and although the overall judgement was Requires Improvement, we are pleased that the inspectors reported: 'Balfour Primary School is a place where pupils can be themselves and are respected as individuals’ ‘the quality of teaching is now good and improving’.

The Ofsted Annual report is also out, read it here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ofsted-annual-report-201617

Research and Evidence Based Practice

I am looking forward to welcoming Kevan Collins, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Fund to our school and college leaders meeting on January 19th, which has the theme of research and evidence based practice.

Kevan will be talking about the importance of evidence and research in education, using some of the EEF projects as examples. Jonathan Cooper will be talking about St Luke's approach to research based Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and colleagues will be sharing some of the research they have done.

All school and college leaders and interested senior leaders are very welcome to attend. Please register on BEEM and, if you would like to share anything from your school or college, please contact Hilary Ferries (hilary.ferries@brighton-hove.gov.uk).

Welcome, Goodbye and Thankyou

After 30 years’ service, Wendy Ellis-Martin, Transport Team Leader, is taking early retirement and will be leaving her role in January. We wish her all the very best in her future endeavours.

Iain Parks, Deputy Headteacher from St Andrew’s and St Martin’s will be leaving the authority to take up a headship role in Liverpool which starts in January. As well as his Deputy Head duties Iain has also contributed to Brighton & Hove SACRE for the last two years. We all wish him the very best luck in his new role.

Congratulations to Roger Snell, Traded Services Manager, who has been successfully recruited to a 12 month secondment as Orbis Schools Lead starting in February 2018. The role is to lead the development and delivery of the traded service strategy for schools and academies within the Orbis Partnership and will involve working closely with service leads to understand and develop existing approaches and identifying new opportunities within the market to help strengthen the Orbis offer. Orbis is a local authority shared services partnership between Surrey, East Sussex and Brighton Councils. Roger will use the extensive knowledge built up working here and previously in East Sussex in his new role and we are pleased he will still be in regular contact. Arrangements for how his role will be covered during the 12 months will follow.

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons
Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.