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.

Jo’s Blog April 2016

Nothing about me, without me.

An image of a young person from the training pack

This month I am delighted to launch ‘Nothing About Me, Without Me,’ a teaching pack that is designed to support teaching and learning about disability equality through PSHE education in primary and secondary schools. It is supported by locally developed DVDs and a positive images photo-pack. 

The teaching pack and the films are hosted on the Carousel: http://www.carousel.org.uk/nothing-about-me-without-me/

I would like to thank all the children, young people, schools and organisations that have contributed to this and I look forward to hearing feedback from schools on its implementation.

Be The Change Event

Students from secondary schools in Brighton & Hove learnt how to be heroes as role models for younger students at an event this month at the AMEX Community Stadium. http://www.givingtimes.co.uk/sussex-school-students-learn-how-to-be-heroes-with-business-mentors/ Almost 90 students aged 13-14 from 10 local secondary schools were joined by a similar number of 10 and 11 year olds from Balfour Primary, Patcham Junior and West Hove Junior schools as part of the inspirational ‘Be the Change’ programme. Facilitated by LoveLocalJobs.com and social enterprise humanutopia, along with mentors from local businesses, education and the public sector, ‘Be the Change’ helps young people to fulfill their potential and improve their life chances. The secondary schools involved in the programme from Brighton & Hove are Cardinal Newman, Dorothy Stringer, Hove Park, Longhill, PACA, BACA, Varndean, Patcham High and Blatchington Mill School. 

Gary Shilladay, Head of Year 9 at Dorothy Stringer said, ‘If only every child in my school could be involved and be a part of this! A community-changing and inspirational message that will change lives. Be the Change gives the students motivation, direction and provokes positive thought. I look forward to seeing the long term benefits for the students involved and just wish I could be more involved.’

Students from Patcham High and Dorothy Stringer

Primary Admissions

It has been a very busy month for the admissions team and an anxious time for parents waiting for their primary school place. However nearly 88% of Brighton & Hove families applying for reception age school places in September 2016 have been offered their first choice school. Overall, more than 97% have been allocated one of their preferred schools this year. I’m delighted that we’ve been able to offer the vast majority of local families their first choice school. There has been a 1.4% improvement in pupils receiving one of their preferred choices of schools this year and a 1.7% reduction in pupils being directed to a school which they had not chosen. I’m sure you will agree this is good news!

There have been three OfSTED inspections so far in April however none of the reports have yet been published: Jeanne Saunders Centre and Easthill Park (PRESENS service), Benfield Primary School and Bevendean Primary School. I look forward to hearing the results of these inspections and will feedback in next month’s blog. 

We are pleased to announce that Cherry Tree Nursery report has been published and they have been judged outstanding.  

“There is an exceptionally good level of high qualified staff.  Staff are extremely skilled in teaching and extending children’s learning. Children make excellent progress.” 

Another school which has shown improvement is Longhill High School and their report has been published. Despite remaining as requires improvement, 

“there is much expertise within the teaching staff which generates enthusiasm for learning in many pupils” 

“almost all pupils proceed into further education, employment or training – a higher proportion than seen nationally”

“ the work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good and the quality of care for pupils is strong, whatever their learning or personal needs”

Well done Longhill

Apprenticeship placement

The Post 16 Learning & Skills Team have been working closely with the apprenticeship team within the city council . Georgia Easteal is one of the apprentices and provided an insight into her new role as an apprentice which I hope you will enjoy to read;

“My name is Georgia Easteal, I’m 16 and this apprenticeship placement is the first type of work I’ve ever done. I did a lot of research during year 11 on which education path I would go down after leaving school. I was unsure which career I was interested in and I didn’t want to go to college for two years and finish with qualifications that would not help me get the job I wanted.

I went to Longhill High School, who provided information on apprenticeships and we were also visited by the apprentice ambassadors. As I have come straight from school and this apprenticeship placement is my first type of work I’ve ever done, it was quite daunting. All my teachers were very supportive and my PSHE teacher once said to me “you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it” which gave me confidence. I work in Transport Planning and work on different projects all around the city, working alongside teams including; Procurement, Legal, Branding and Marketing, Graphic design, Finance and many more, this has given me so much variety in my job.

I am also one of the Apprentice Ambassadors which involves visiting schools, colleges and career fairs to promote career opportunities and provide information on apprenticeships. My apprenticeship has given me essential life skills that will help me in any future employment or job interview and is something that cannot be taught in college or university, this is one of the reasons why I became an ambassador.

I’m so glad I decided to do an apprenticeship as it has given me a sense of responsibility and along with earning my own money, knowing that my work is helping the residents of Brighton & Hove is a reward in itself.”

Thank you Georgia and it’s great to have you on-board.

Brighton & Hove Education Partnership future developments

One of the slides from the event.

We facilitated a productive and forward thinking event on 26^th April with our Head Teachers, college principals and wider partners discussing the White Paper and future developments of our education partnership. The turnout was fantastic with representatives from all phases of education from early years through to post sixteen provision and university, we were joined by our partners from the Diocese and the Aldridge Foundation.

It was an opportunity to celebrate the work of our strong family of Brighton & Hove schools and education provision. It was a chance for the Local Authority to outline its response to the White Paper and its vision for our Education Partnership going forward. There was a real appreciation from all of the challenges the education sector currently faces and the opportunity to take collective responsibility for shaping the future.

We discussed and explored different models and organisational structures and how these might support Brighton & Hove’s vision and values going forward.  We discussed the need for the continual development of effective working in the clusters and partnerships that exist across the city and the possibility of the creation of an overarching legal entity in the form of a trust company or cooperation including our schools, the council and other education partners.

The Local Authority provided a strong message of its commitment to ensuring that education and schools remain central to fulfilling the ambitions of children and young people and expressed its determination to continue to offer schools and wider education partners the best levels of support.

There was a clear message that we needed to continue to develop and grow our successful education partnerships we have in place across the city with an ongoing focus on improved outcomes for children and young people to ensure that no child is left behind. There was a real desire to keep the strong family of schools and education provision working together and continually improving.

There was a lot of lively debate and agreement to work together to develop our city approach further, whilst keeping a close eye on national developments in relation to the White Paper.

The Music & Arts Supporting Wellbeing

Our Music & Arts service have been working with young people in eight of the city’s schools to co-develop and deliver a range of creative programmes focused on achieving not only artistic but also wellbeing outcomes. Children and young people from four secondary and four primary schools have taken part in programmes that explore different aspects of wellbeing including resilience; emotional regulation; the Five Ways to Wellbeing; and the development of alternative coping mechanisms through activities including song-writing, sculpture, music technology and exploration of heritage.

This wellbeing programme includes both targeted and universal models, working closely with vulnerable young people who are demonstrating specific ‘unhealthy’ behaviours (e.g. self-harm) but also with larger groups to explore and promote the components of good mental health for everyone. This work also brings together professionals from different settings to create unique, positive experiences for the young people that use the power of creative and cultural engagement to improve their sense of wellbeing. If you are interested in finding out more about the innovative work we are doing, please contact Peter Chivers (Peter.Chivers@brighton-hove.gov.uk)

Visit to the Early Explorers Pre-School Setting

It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to visit the Early Explorers and spend the morning with Alison Wakeford (Education Manager of Early Explorers), the children and staff, and also shadow Teresa Darby and Penny Macey from PRESENS as well as meeting with some parents.

The education and care of the children which I observed was outstanding with clear evidence of children making progress and having fun in a positive environment. It was so important for me to see, first hand, how the PRESENS  team support Alison and the team to ensure the best outcomes for the children.

Secondary Admissions

Richard Barker and I have been busy facilitating twenty four public engagements across the city as part of the reviews. These have been well attended by parents, carers and colleagues from education and schools and have provided us with a range of feedback about the potential admissions models.  It’s been a privilege to meet so many parents and hear their views and issues related to that very important decision they make regarding transfer to secondary school. We have also been engaging with children and young people in a serious of focus groups. The engagement phase finishes on the 1st May and then there will be a period of reflection, gathering in all the comments and feedback before moving forward with more firm proposals for the final consultation. Thank you to everyone who has participated in this first phase.

Richard Barker engaging with children in Whitehawk

Bilingual Primary School

Children dancing Flamenco

I was pleased to be invited to the official opening ceremony of the Bilingual Primary School, Brighton & Hove. It was wonderful to see the brand new school and be shown around and greeted in Spanish by the children. Wendy King (the Headteacher) talked with passion about her vision for the school where they promote the ‘love of learning through language’. She emphasised the importance of being part of the family of schools in the city working closely with the Local Authority and thanked those parents who established the school from the start to what it is today. The ceremony was creative and fun with the children doing amazing displays of Flamenco dancing and singing in Spanish.

Best wishes,
Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.

March 2016

World  book day at Woodingdean Primary School

World Book Day

World Book Day is all about dressing up as your favourite book characters and on 3^rd March there were some colourful costumes all over the city.  Meriel Jones, Every Child a Reader (ECaR) Teacher at St. Martin's (CE) Nursery and Primary School asked each class to make a big book for their book corners which the children can share, cherish and enjoy! Adults in the school community were asked to share their favourite books in a school assembly and the children were so engrossed and interested in what we liked and why.

Several year groups visited Jubilee/Moulsecoomb libraries. Meriel said ‘’The children were completely bowled over by the building itself, couldn't quite believe it was a building purely full of books. When it came to choosing a book they were amazed at the choice on offer. They really loved their experience there.’’

It is so positive to see that events like this have been successful in engaging many children from our Brighton and Hove schools in reading and books.

This month we received the Ofsted report for the City Council’s Family and Community Learning provision which was inspected in late January. I am delighted it has been rated as a good provider with a judgement that safeguarding is effective. Inspectors noted the responsiveness of our family learning team. The provision was deemed to be collaborating well with partners and responsive to learners, while targeting the hard to reach pupils. Overall learner achievement was rated as good, while learners with difficulties found to achieve outstandingly well. Tutors’ planning and general guidance was also deemed to be good.  

Ofsted also inspected Longhill secondary school this month and I look forward to receiving the final report.

Post 16 Skills and Learning

At the end of National Apprentice week I joined other council leads, Head teacher’s local businesses, colleges and other agencies for the launch of the Employer Pledge at the Dome.  The Employer Skills Taskforce has been headed by Zac Toumazi, CEO of Sussex County Cricket.  The event considered how businesses can be better linked to schools and how apprenticeship numbers can be increased.

One of the recommendations is to recruit a Governor for Enterprise within each school, who can champion entrepreneurship within the curriculum, support initiatives that raise awareness of the world of work and promote employability. Another commitment is to recruit 1000 apprentices in 1000 days a commitment from employers across the city. As part of this, the council has committed to recruit 100 apprentices 2016/17 and will be supporting employer engagement with schools, which is another part of the pledge.

https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/content/jobs/apprenticeships/1000-apprenticeships

Please follow the link to find out more.

 Stephanie Baker Post 16 Apprentice presenting at the LSEP

At this month’s Learning, Skills and Employment Partnership meeting it was also positive to hear two of the council's apprentices talk about their experience within the council, in their role as apprenticeship ambassadors.










Secondary School Admissions Review- Engagement Phase

I have been busy with Richard Barker (Head of School Organisation) and other team colleagues this month hosting a serious of engagement events across the city as part of our review of secondary admissions catchment areas. There have been 8 events so far and we have had over 500 responses via the council’s online portal.  Additional events will take place after the Easter school holidays including opportunities to engage with young people. This engagement phase runs up till 1^st May and will inform the statutory consultation that will take place in autumn 2016. 

Please do look at the website www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/schooladmissions and provide your views and comments as this is such an important development for the city and its children, families and schools.

Launch of the Schools of Sanctuary Programme

I was delighted to open the launch event for the Schools of Sanctuary programme. 50 people attended representing 22 schools and we were all moved by the stories of refugees Alex Ntung and Gee Manoharan. Students and staff from Blatchington Mill shared Moving Stories – films made by young people to tell the stories of leaving their home country and moving to Brighton & Hove. Teachers from St Luke’s and Patcham High shared work they had done to include teaching and learning about refugees across the curriculum and St Bartholomew’s staff explained the work they had done to welcome and include two Syrian refugees into their school family. The feedback included ‘a very moving morning, the personal stories were extraordinary’, ‘incredibly affirming’.

Congratulations to the following schools – the first to receive Schools of Sanctuary certificates for the work they have done contributing to making their schools places of welcome and sanctuary: Blatchington Mill, Carlton Hill, Elm Grove, Hove Park, Patcham High,St Luke’s and St Mary Magdalen’s. Their good practice case studies and more information about the schools of sanctuary programme can be found on Pier2Peer. https://www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupHomepage.asp?GroupId=1247886

Jenny Lansdell  -Chair of Sanctuary and Tania Hendry - Hove Park School

Integrated Learning Support and Educational Psychology Services

The consultation period is now over on our plans to make improvements to the way our learning support and educational psychology services support schools, their pupils and their families. We have listened to the feedback and have taken it into account in our final proposals for change. We also engaged a consultant to scrutinise our review of our support services and her report will also influence the final outcome. The work and its final proposals were well received by the Children, Young People and Skills Committee. Regan and I are currently in the process of recruiting the new Head of Service and working with the teams to plan the bringing together the of new integrated service.

The Education Partnerships in Brighton & Hove

Many of you will have seen the announcement by the Chancellor in the recent budget speech and the new White Paper ‘Education Excellence Everywhere’, which includes government’s policy that every school must become an academy. Linked to this will be legislation with regard to the role of Local Authorities and our role in education.  It suggests that local authorities will be moving to a radically different relationship with its schools.

It will be no surprise to you to learn that the City Council and its Administration are absolutely committed to ensuring that education and schools remain central to fulfilling the ambitions of children and young people here in the city irrespective of the governance arrangements that emerge over time

We hosted a very positive meeting this month with the head teacher, chairs of the cluster partnerships, college principals and our wider education partners from the University of Brighton and Sussex, the Aldridge Foundation and the Russell Education Trust, to look at the positive work of our current partnerships and how we can improve and develop them further going forward. We are looking forward to widening this debate with a session with all heads governors and the wider partnership early next term where we can look at the full implications of the White Paper and so we can develop in the post legislative landscape.  There are several potential models that could be developed and we are working on the merits and demerits of each of those and will fully engage with you so that any new model is co-constructed. We would therefore encourage you to engage with us as we plan out what that future will look like so we retain the best facets of the positive partnerships what we have in Brighton and Hove.

Let's dance 2016

Picture from Dorothy Stringer’s website

This month was the annual spectacular week long event celebrating school and young people’s dance organised by Dorothy Stringer School and it was an amazing evening, a real celebration of dance with well rehearsed routines, incredible eye catching costumes and even a guest appearance from one of our Primary Deputy  Headteachers on stage. The stage was full of colour with wigs, extravagant costumes and a lot of gold lame! 78 schools, colleges, dance groups and the University of Brighton had danced on stage over the week, and  I’m sure the show gets better and better each year. Thank you to all the children and young people who took part and thank you especially to Dorothy Stringer School for continuing to give the children and young people this opportunity to perform together in such a big event.

Welcome and Goodbye

Claire King my Personal Assistant and the Education and Inclusion Office Manager left us at the end of term. Claire has been amazing in her role and has done much to improve our systems and communication in the branch and across Children’s Services. We will miss her very much and wish her well in her new role with the Clinical Commissions group

                                                                 Claire king and Jo Lyons on Claire’s last day

Welcome to Anne Henderson who has joined the School Admissions Team from the youth service as Senior Admissions Officer.

Anna Czepil has been appointed as the new Head of SEN Statutory Services.  Anna is currently SEND (Special Educational Needs & Disabilities) Joint Commissioning Manager in East Sussex. Until she joins us, which is unlikely to be for three months or so, Ronny Burfield will continue the excellent job she has been doing so far as Acting Head of this section.

Stephanie Baker 

Stephanie Baker has joined the Post 16 development team as an apprentice administrator. Stephanie is part of the council’s team for the Brathay Apprentice challenge.

I am delighted that Rachel Simmonds, Head Teacher from West Blatchington Primary School will join the team part time next term supporting us with our school improvement work and the development of our self-improving school led system.

SoundCity 4

 

A big, big thank you to everyone who performed in Brighton and Hove's annual celebration of young musical talent, SoundCity 4 on Saturday 12 March at the Corn Exchange.  The night brilliantly showcased the incredible, diverse and inclusive music making that is happening amongst young people across the city. All acts performed amazingly and made it a fantastic and memorable night!   If you weren’t amongst the fabulous supporters in the audience, you can watch again here http://brightondome.org/extras/live_streams/watch_again_soundcity/

Best wishes,

Jo

Keep in touch and follow me on Twitter @JoMLyons

Find details here Twitter accounts across all council services.