7 December 2023 weekly update

Dear Colleagues,

The majority of this bulletin is about work going on in schools.

Northfleet Technology College - a global prize winner

Huge congratulations to Steven Gallears, headteacher at Northfleet Technology College; Michael Jones, Director Innovation and Churchill Fellow (find out more from Michael (PDF, 60.5 KB)); and pupils for winning the Zayed Sustainability Prize at the International Climate Change Challenge Awards organised by the Saïd Business School (University of Oxford). The competition launched this summer by Burjeel Holdings and Saïd Business School, invited high school students and teachers from across the world to help tackle the climate crisis.

The school won the award for its beehive business. The beehives produce honey and wax which are then used for creating sustainable products and they had the opportunity to be awarded at the COP28 summit in Dubai.

The prize is worth £118,000 and the pupils aim to spend it taking mobile beehives around the UK to spread their message about sustainability.

Embedding evidence based practice - the VIAT approach

I recently attended a Valley Invicta Academy Trust (VIAT) event where each of their SENCOs talked about their individual projects over the last year on embedding evidence-based practice to strengthen SEN within each school and the impact of their work. Of particular interest to me was the way that participation in EEFective Kent projects, our four your ground-breaking project with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), and the EEF evidence base was referenced so extensively. I am really grateful to Dr Alison Ekin for providing a booklet outlining the projects (PDF, 3.1 MB) and for agreeing to respond to any of your questions. Please do contact Alison by emailing clerk@viat.org.uk.

School visit - Temple Hill Primary School

I was delighted to manage to have a school visit this week to this Temple Hill Primary school, part of the Golden Thread Alliance. A really big thank you to Gary Ratcliffe, Chief Executive; Leon Dawson, Head of school; and the members of the leadership team and staff I met on my visit and who gave so generously of their time. With 900 pupils, the school has an SRP for ASC and an SRP for Speech and Language and impressive inclusive practice embedded across the school. The work is really impressive.

Key meetings

Schools Funding Forum took place last Friday, a marathon session which took most of the day and we will be reporting back of the outcomes in the near future. Today I attended Scrutiny Committee, the majority of which focused on KCC’s budget but also included an item on Home to School Transport on page 179, full reports are available

And finally

I spent the weekend on an annual Christmas weekend away with nephew, grandson and mum (age range 11 to 89, so a bit of a challenge to keep everyone on board) in a triangular chalet, which we thought was like a Mr Man house on the Kent coast. It was the first year we didn’t have a visit to Santa, but we had a lot of fun despite the weather and marvelled at the Walmer Castle Christmas illuminations.

Have a great weekend.

Christine McInnes
Director of Education and SEN