Summer Sports

 

Welcome back to the summer term.  I hope everyone has managed to take a break and rest over the Easter holiday.   We are all looking forward to the summer term and the number of sports events going on across the city to support physical exercise, fun and emotional well-being for all our children and young people.  I am excited to hear from our schools and wider education providers as to how they will be engaging young people across the term in sport and the outdoors. 

School Games – Sports Leaders 

16 Patcham High School Sports Leaders and 12 PACA Sports Leaders who had recently taken part in a netball umpiring course were the officials at the Sussex School Games Primary Stinger Netball finals held at Falmer. 9 primary schools took part from across Sussex with Our Lady of Lourdes representing Brighton and Hove. The Sports Leaders did a fantastic job running the tournament in some interesting weather conditions which even included snow at one point! All of the schools commented on how good the leaders were. 

At the same event the Female Football Academy Students from Cardinal Newman ran a girls’ football festival for year 3/4 girls from across Sussex. The students from Newman designed and created the festival for the girls, after they had been involved in the FA’s Girls School Football Partnerships Game On course – which is part of the FA’s programme to give equal access to girls’ football in schools. This is also linked to the Women’s Euros as we are a host city for the tournament in July. Hertford and Saltdean from Brighton and Hove took part in the event. Well done to everyone involved!  Don’t forget you can access lots of free Women’s Euros resources online here.

Brighton Festival Children’s Parade 2022

I am so pleased that the Brighton Festival Children’s Parade is returning after a two year break due to the pandemic.  The parade takes place on Saturday 7 May as part of the programme of activities for the festival and has a theme of Rebuilding and Hope, celebrating the strength and resilience of communities across our city.  I look forward to seeing the creative and imaginative displays from our schools and partners.

Virtual School Art Competition 

                                     Starla’s Sunshine Flower – one of the KS1 entries

It was great to hear more about the Virtual School’s first ever art competition which was launched February, welcoming all Brighton & Hove children in care, children previously in care and care leavers. The competition was grouped into 5 key stages: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Every piece of art that was submitted was impressive and it was wonderful to see so many young people stepping forward to get involved. The winners will be announced by early May and all entrants along with the winners will have their work displayed in an online and a live art exhibition during the summer. The time and venue will be announced in due course.

Lessons on Leadership

                                                Keynote speaker Marc Rowlands

                                                      Presenter Camille Kumar 

                                                    Delegates at the conference

The “Lessons on Leadership” Deputy and Assistant Headteacher Conference took place earlier this month.   Delegates were captivated by key note speaker Marc Rowlands who shared insights from his 11 years’ experience unpicking how to improve the life chances and life choices of disadvantaged pupils.   This was followed by Camille Kumar, who provided a thought provoking and inspiring presentation on Brighton and Hove’s Anti-Racist Education Strategy.  A panel discussion then took place, led by headteacher Chris Pearson and including four heads from local primary and secondary schools that are all relatively new in post.  They were candid and honest about their motivation to lead their schools and were inspirational to our aspiring local leaders of education. 

Youth Council Manifesto Event

I was delighted to be able to join a manifesto event for young people in late March looking at the theme of health and wellbeing which was the topic most voted for locally in the 2022 British Youth Council’s Make Your Mark Campaign.  The event was organised and run by members of the Youth Council in partnership with Brighton Youth Centre. Over 60 young people took part, from many different youth projects across the city.  Young people could choose to be a part of different discussion groups, enjoy fun activities and hear about youth voice opportunities in the city. 

For more information about the Youth Council, please contact Tracie James on tracie.james@brighton-hove.gov.uk 

Business Start Up Taster Day

                         The three young entrepreneurs - Ellis Muddle – Digital Artist; 

        Sinead Pope – Hairdresser and Asher Burrell - Gardener, Landscaper & Arborist 

                                    The Youth Employment Hub Team, along with 

                                       young volunteers and young entrepreneurs 

I have been really interested to hear more about the ‘Business Start Up Taster Day’ which the Youth Employment Hub held in partnership with the Business and IP Centre Sussex at the Jubilee Library. Three up and coming young entrepreneurs set up their stalls bright and early in the foyer of the library to showcase their products and services. The Youth Employment Hub team were there to support them and promote the event in the city and the BIPC team were on hand to speak to anyone interested in entrepreneurship. In the afternoon, the BIPC hosted a workshop for young people which took them through the services available at the BIPC and the process of starting a business. The workshop was well attended and enjoyed by all. 

Virtual School Annual Summer Conference – online webinar: 30 June 2022 

The annual summer conference will focus on the theme of empowerment for young people, as well as education professionals.  Highly popular and engaging keynote speaker, Kit Messenger will be returning to debate how high expectations can be maintained without punitive approaches or any compromise on standards. 

I am also looking forward to hearing from young author and care leaver, Kirsty Capes. Kirsty’s book, 'Careless' which has been serialised on BBC Radio 4, is an advocate for better representation for care-experienced people in the media. More will be added to the programme in the coming weeks.  To book a free ticket, please follow this link.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Virtual School has commissioned Encyclopaedia Britannica’s online learning resource for children in care, children previously in care and children with a social worker as well as any adult responsible for their education. This can be accessed online from any device, meaning that young people are given educational support wherever they are learning from. If you are eligible and would like access to this resource, please email the Virtual School at virtualschool@brighton-hove.gov.uk. For designated teachers who would like to know more about how to use this resource, Britannica will be at the Virtual School’s Designated Teacher Network on 9 June to give a demo. 

Welcomes

I would like to welcome Kirsty Murray who has taken over as acting headteacher at Queen’s Park Primary School and I look forward to working with Kirsty over the coming months.

                                                                Kirsty Murray

This month, we also welcome Simon Wattam who has been appointed as headteacher at St Luke’s Primary School.  I look forward to working with Simon in his new role.

                                                                 Simon Wattam

Goodbyes

We say goodbye and thank you this month to Gill Hibbert who is retiring from her position as Education Safeguarding Officer at Brighton & Hove City Council.  For many years before that Gill worked as an Assistant Head Teacher at Hove Park.  Gill’s attention to detail, experience and calm approach will be missed by the council and schools alike.  We wish her a very happy and long retirement.

We also say goodbye this month to Helen Beaumont, Early Years Consultant, who is leaving the council after twenty nine years, having joined as a teacher in 1993 and since 2001 has been an early years consultant, heading a team supporting early years settings to provide the highest quality early years provision.  Helen’s calm, insightful and compassionate approach, her good humour and dedication will be hugely missed and we wish her well in the future.

                                                              Helen Beaumont

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

World Book Day 2022

 

This year celebrated 25 years of World Book Day. I have been hearing amazing stories of how our schools have made this year a great event.   Saltdean Primary's World Book Day celebrations centred around a Choose Kind theme and the book We're All Wonders by RJ Palacio. Children made Choose Kind displays, performed random acts of kindness and complimented their classmates to help them feel good.  Children came to school in their PJs for lots of cosy reading and stories and there was a whole school book swap.  Children made potato book characters and displayed them in the classroom and all had a Wonderful day!

     

                                                  Saltdean Primary's celebrations

At Rudyard Kipling Primary School, pupils and staff were inspired by the book Clean Up by Dapo Adeola which explores plastic pollution and its effects on the ocean. They produced books and posters with ideas on how to save the planet as well as creating sea creatures out of junk materials, map making and drama.  A Year 6 child said, “I like how the book motivates me to go outside and help make a difference in the world!”

                                            Rudyard Kipling Primary's celebrations

New Poverty Proofing Network for Brighton and Hove

The Poverty Proofing Network has recently been set up to build on the work developed through the “Poverty Proofing the School Day” audits and to explore ways to further support disadvantaged children and families across the city. It is open to all schools in Brighton and Hove to share the good practice that is already taking place and to hear about initiatives that are happening within the city and beyond. The meetings take place once every half-term and are centred around a topic chosen by members of the network. The theme of the last meeting was “food”, and we had a presentation from the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership, with information about ways to support families, such as accessing emergency food parcels, low-cost shopping hubs across the city and the Household Support Fund.  For more information, please contact ashley.seymour-williams@brighton-hove.gov.uk 

Young Carers Rocks Cabaret Show

Wednesday 16 March was Young Carers Action Day and The Young Carers Project, alongside Brighton and Hove City Council, put on ‘The Young Carers Rocks Cabaret Show’.  It was an event to celebrate all the amazing work that young carers in Brighton and Hove do and to put on a show for young carers and their families to enjoy.  For many it was a night out that often isn’t possible, and a chance to relax and have fun.  There were also awards presented to young carers, as well as a world premiere of a film to promote young carers made by a young carer himself, and an outstanding song performed by a young carer which left few dry eyes in the house.

  

Make Your Mark Campaign

                                        Youth Council members at a planning meeting

The Youth Council have been working very hard on encouraging young people to vote in the Make Your Mark Campaign. More than 1800 young people from Brighton and Hove took part in the UK Youth Parliaments national ballot, which is the biggest survey of young people’s views. Members of the Youth Council had meetings in their schools with teachers to plan the best way forward to encourage young people to vote.  The top four issues voted for in Brighton and Hove are: 1. health and wellbeing; 2. education and learning; 3. jobs, money, homes and opportunities and 4. the environment. Thank you to all the teachers that gave up their time to help with the campaign. 

Addressing Educational Disadvantage: Helping Pupils to Thrive in Our Schools and Classrooms

                                                              Marc Rowland

We were thrilled to welcome Marc Rowland to Brighton and Hove for our spring term school and colleges leaders’ business meeting earlier this month. Marc explored the theme of addressing educational disadvantage: how we can make a difference through a whole school approach and an attention to pupils’ experiences every day in school and in the classroom.  Marc will be working with some of our schools over the next few months through a project commissioned by Brighton and Hove City Council with the Durrington Research School.  He will also be presenting to our aspiring leaders at our forthcoming conference “Lessons in Leadership” at the University of Sussex.

CityWide Year 6-7 Literacy Transition Project

 Literacy unit planning  

Teachers from primary and secondary schools have recently come together at Varndean School to plan Literacy units to support the transition of our Year 6 pupils on their next stage of learning. It was a positive and productive afternoon of collaboration that resulted in three units of planning being produced. These are all based on the book Happy Here, a collection of short stories introduced by Sharna Jackson.   All Brighton and Hove schools will receive these plans with accompanying teaching resources early in the summer term and this will be followed by online sessions for teachers to attend so they feel fully confident in teaching the units. I look forward to hearing how this goes!

Power of Reading – Celebration Event

Ten primary schools celebrated the success of implementing the Power of Reading in their schools over the last few years. Despite disruptions caused by the pandemic, the schools were able to receive the training from Centre for Literacy in Primary Education online.  This great work has continued this year through partnership with Brighton and Hove Teaching and Learning Consultants and Lead Teachers from Associate PoR School, Rudyard Kipling.   Schools have embarked on lesson studies with partner schools to support their own practice and further embed this approach across their whole school. Thank you to all schools involved – the event was a huge success!  Schools can email Joyti.Azad@brighton-hove.gov.uk if they would like to be involved in Cohort 2 of this project.

Hearing the Voice of Care Experienced Young People 

                                                   Sussex University session

Hannah and Josh at the annual social workers conference

This month two of our care leavers delivered a dynamic and creative session to social work students at Sussex University – well done to Gemma and Hollie.  Members of the Care Leavers Forum also opened the annual social workers conference, sharing their positive experiences of social workers and personal advisors.   Thank you to Hannah and Josh for your contributions.  For more information about the opportunities for Children in Care and Care Leavers, please contact: debbie.garrett@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Brighton and Hove Primary Cross Country Team – Sussex School Games Finals

It was great to hear that 80 year 5s and year 6s from 19 different primary schools - from Peter Gladwin in the west, right out to Saltdean in the east - took part in the Sussex School Games Cross Country finals at Waterhall on 3 March.  These children finished in the top 20 from the B&H primary races in November.  There were over 150 runners in each race and twelve Sports Leaders from Dorothy Stringer and five Sports Leaders from Varndean College supported the event.  All of the teams came away with medals with Year 5 and 6 Girls winning Gold; Year 5 Boys winning Silver and Year 6 Boys winning Gold. There were also some fantastic individual performances in the races too.  Well done to everyone who took part! 

Virtual School Foster Carer Webinar – 17 March 

The Virtual School delivered its annual Foster Carer Conference virtually on Thursday 17 March. The day was a great success, weaving together attachment and trauma aware presentations from Karen Milton and Michael Reeves, along with a demonstration of Worth Publishing's new Reach4Care Awareness & Behaviour platform from Andrea Perry.  This tool offers quick access to explanations and strategies for supporting young people drawn from a wealth of expertise. The Virtual School will be granting carers free access to this new platform in the coming weeks; more information on the Reach4Care platform can be found here.

In the afternoon, there was a hugely engaging and thought provoking conversation facilitated by Camille Kumar, followed by an inspiring presentation from Claire Williams and Jamie Wilson on the psychology of praise, which gave us yet more food for thought. Resources and links from the webinar will be available soon.

St Margaret’s Football Success

The St Margaret’s Year 6 mixed football team

Congratulations to St Margaret’s CE Primary School’s Year 6 mixed football team who have made it through to the national finals of a football tournament.  The team won the Brighton and Hove small schools’ tournament in October, going on to win the Sussex-wide tournament in January, before finishing as runners up at the South East Regional Championships in London this month and progressing through to the national finals.

The finals are due to take place at a Premier League football ground in the Midlands where the team will take on some of the best school teams across the country.  Rachel Kershaw, Headteacher at St Margaret’s has said “They are a huge credit to the school, displaying outstanding teamwork, sportsmanship and determination and everyone at St Margaret's is so proud of them”.  Good luck to the team for the finals and I look forward to hearing how they get on.

Brighton & Hove School Baton Relay

I was so pleased to hear about the progress of the Brighton and Hove School Baton Relay, organised by Coldean Primary School, which has been taking place across the city’s schools this month.  The relay will visit every school across Brighton and Hove in the run up to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham later this year.   The baton left Coldean on 8 March to head to BACA and will return on 7 July after it has visited all 68 schools in the city.  As they pass on the baton, each school will also pass on a message of hope and inspiration

The children at Coldean designed the baton and ensured it represented elements of the city they felt were important.  They created a reworking of Ian Dury’s ‘Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3’ as their message of hope.  This can be viewed on the school Facebook page.  A local artist then turned the children's designs into a 3D baton, made out of brass.  I look forward to hearing more about the relay over the coming weeks.

Early Help Review Update – where are we now?

Our consultant led review of the Early Help system for children and families in Brighton and Hove is now in its final stages. The review has helped to identify lots of amazing work with families and given us the building blocks to think about how we may want to do things in the future, in line with the key national drivers including the Best Start for Life, Supporting Families Programme and Family Hubs.  We are also closely linking this work to the wider disadvantage strategy development.   We will be using co-production to inform our approach, transformation and delivery plan and will be hosting co-production workshops over the coming months where a range of stakeholders, including schools from across the city, will be invited to be involved.  

Let’s Dance

This term saw the return of the eagerly anticipated and celebrated event Let’s Dance, which took place at the Brighton Dome from Monday 14 - Friday 18 March. In a week-long festival which celebrated and showcased dance from the children in our city, a total of 1,745 young people from the schools across Brighton and Hove took to the stage. Young people aged from 4–18 danced to packed auditoriums of over 900 audience members each night.  I look forward to seeing and hearing more about the dances which took place.

Schools White Paper

On Monday 28 March the Government published the Schools White Paper, Opportunity for All: strong schools with great teachers for your child. This sets out the long term vision that 90% of primary school children will achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, and in secondary schools, the national GCSE average in both English language and maths will increase to 5 by 2030. The four pillars of the plan are to ensure an excellent teacher for every child, high standards of curriculum, behaviour and attendance, targeted support for every child who needs it and a stronger and fairer school system. There is much for school leaders, governors and our wider education partners to consider in this paper, and we look forward to discussing the details and exploring the implications over the coming months.

Ofsted have been very busy in the city. Kings School, Blatchington Mill School, Stanford Infants School, Mile Oak Primary School, Brackenbury Primary School and St Peter's Primary School have all recently been inspected.  We look forward to the publication of the reports.  

Welcomes and Goodbyes

I would like to welcome to Robert Hardy as the new Chair of the Brighton and Hove Schools Forum.  We look forward to working closely with Robert over the coming months.

We say goodbye and thank you this month to Anne Cox who is stepping down as Head Teacher of Queen's Park Primary School at Easter.  Anne has been Headteacher at Queen’s Park for 15 years and will be much missed by colleagues across the city.  I would like to thank her for her commitment to the school and the wider Brighton and Hove Education Partnership and wish her all the best for a very happy and well earned retirement.

                                                                  Anne Cox

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

Support for Ukraine

All our thoughts will be with the people of Ukraine at the moment and we hope a peaceful resolution is found quickly.  I know that many of you will be anxious about the escalating situation and some of you will be desperately worried about families and friends there.

Many people, including children and young people in our communities, are likely to be experiencing a range of emotions including fear, worry and concern as a result.  The following link offers lots of relevant wellbeing activities: Supporting wellbeing | BEEM and there is further support on the Council website here.

A page on www.BEEM.org.uk has been set up to hold information and resources for schools to support you in supporting pupils, students and families: PSHE - serious incidents | BEEM. Please do send any feedback or any resources you have developed to pshe@brighton-hove.gov.uk.

Over the coming weeks, the Council will be working closely with key national, regional and local agencies to closely review matters and ensure we respond as swiftly as possible to any implications arising for the city of Brighton and Hove.  As a City of Sanctuary we stand ready to offer our support to those fleeing persecution from the crisis in Ukraine.

We will be looking with colleagues across the Brighton & Hove Education Partnership at how we can reach out and offer our support to the people of Ukraine during this extremely challenging time.

Young Carers Action Day

Wednesday 16 March is Young Carers Action Day and I have been excited to hear more about the evening event that the Council and the Young Carers Project are hosting at The Ironworks Studio to celebrate the amazing work that young carers do.  ‘Young Carers Rock’ will feature performances as well as awards for our city’s young carers, which are voted for by the young carers themselves.  If you would like to attend the event, please contact youngcarers@brighton-hove.gov.uk to secure a place.

School Games Update

                         Brighton and Hove School Games Indoor Athletics Competition

                                                 The School Games Badminton Competition

Well done to over 370 year 5 and 6 students from 17 different primary schools across the city who have recently taken part in the Brighton and Hove School Games Indoor Athletics competitions at BACA.   45 leaders from Blatchington Mill, BACA and Varndean College supported the events and congratulations go to Goldstone, Downs and Hertford who were the winning schools over the three weeks.   It was great to hear that 45 KS3 and KS4 students took part in the School Games Badminton Competitions with Kings and Longhill progressing through to the Sussex finals which will take place in March.  Good luck to both schools!

Congratulations also go to 24 students from PACA and Patcham High who have recently completed a Primary Netball Leaders umpiring workshop which enables them to umpire the Brighton and Hove Primary School tournaments taking place in March.

Youth Council Prepares for Make Your Mark Campaign

                                                       Youth Council members

The Youth Council members have been busy planning how best to canvass schools and encourage young people to vote in the Make Your Mark Campaign, the UK’s biggest youth vote.   Make Your Mark is an opportunity for 11–18-year-olds across the UK to have their say by voting on the policies they want to introduce or change. 

Youth Council members have held meetings in their schools, discussing effective methods of enabling young people to vote.  Follow the Youth Council's new Instagram page to get involved!  http://ow.ly/FtF450HU8gM   #youthvoice #MakeYourMark  

A video explaining the Make Your Mark campaign has been sent out to all schools.  A link to the video is here.  For further information please contact Tracie James on tracie.james@brighton-hove.gov.uk

The FA #Let Girls Play Day

The FA #Let Girls Play day takes place on Wednesday 9 March.  I look forward to hearing more about the different ways that schools across the city are celebrating and encouraging girls to get involved with football.  For more information, please see Girls’ Football in Schools.  

Don’t forget to also make sure your school is signed up to the UEFA Women’s Euro free school resources ahead of the tournament later this year.  Resources and more information can be found at this link UEFA Women's EURO 2022 Schools Programme | Show Your Heart 

Maths Improvement Project

I was very pleased to hear that over the last year, several primary schools in Brighton & Hove have engaged in the Maths Improvement Project.  This was a partnership project between the local authority and South Coast Schools Alliance with the aim of improving outcomes for pupils in KS2, particularly those with a disadvantaged background.  

This month, teachers met for the final time to share the progress, outcomes and next steps for their schools.  The key words from the afternoon were: fluency; stem sentences and generalisations; retrieval and impact.  Thank you to our subject leaders for facilitating these high quality sessions and to all the teachers and schools involved for their hard work and commitment.

Virtual School 

The Virtual School’s annual Foster Carer Conference takes place online on 17 March.  This year will see presentations on Emotion Coaching, Emotional Literacy and Sensory Attachment.  In addition, the Virtual School will offer an introduction to an exciting platform called Reach for Care which will be made available to foster carers and there will be a presentation from Camille Kumar who is the B&H Anti Racist Education Strategy lead.  For more information please contact hadia.saeh@brighton-hove.gov.uk 

Congratulations to Hannah and Jade, two Brighton & Hove care leavers who have successfully been appointed to the role of Participation Assistants, employed by the NHS.  These are 6-month Kickstart positions, and they will be working with the NHS designated nurse team across Sussex to help shape and develop health services for children in care and care leavers.

Hannah said: “I am so happy… I feel like this job is a stepping-stone to continuing participation work in the long term”.  Jade added: “Being a young mum takes away a lot even though it’s magical. I’m really looking forward to doing something different after spending the last 10 years caring for my dad”.

I am also delighted to hear that the Youth Participation Board is taking exciting steps to ensure care experienced young people are meaningfully involved in Corporate Parenting Board meetings.  As part of this process a co-chair role will now be filled by members of the Care Leavers Forum.  For any young people interested in finding out more about the opportunities for Children in Care and Care Leavers, please contact debbie.garrett@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Congratulations to Hove Park School for retaining their Good grading at their last Ofsted inspection. The Inspector said “Pupils are proud ambassadors of the school.  Pupils of all abilities and backgrounds are valued” and “Leaders have a clear vision for the curriculum... They ensure that the curriculum caters for pupils’ academic and personal development.”

Blatchington Mill School had its Ofsted inspection last week and we look forward to being able to report the results.  Brackenbury Primary School’s Ofsted inspection takes place tomorrow - we wish them very good luck for the next couple of days.

Goodbye 

We say goodbye and thank you this month to Bob Speight who has stepped down as Principal of BACA.  Over the last four years, Bob has led BACA to great success with academic outcomes improving year on year.  Bob will be missed by colleagues across the Brighton & Hove Partnership but I would like to wish him all the best for the future.  Stephanie Newman will take over as Interim Executive Principal until a new Principal is appointed.

                                                     Bob Speight

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.