I started the day early having breakfast with headteacher colleagues at Cockburn College of Arts...

These headteachers are a great group of colleagues doing brilliant work with children and families against a background of poverty and deprivation. We talked about the characteristics of brilliant provision and how schools could maintain their focus on standards and safeguarding despite the challenges we are currently facing with change, cuts and uncertainty. We all agreed that we need our schools to be creative and inspiring places at the heart of their communities 365-24-7 releasing the magic and the WOW factor. We need to develop brilliant early years practice and to ensure that Every Child is a Reader and Every Child Counts by the time they are seven or eight... and we need to ensure that as far as possible all our children became brilliant little learners by the time they leave primary school and are on a pathway to success by the time they are sixteen.

These wonderful colleagues have a fundamental and unshakeable belief in what can be achieved with their children and their communities and it was brilliant to spend some time with these colleagues who are at the front line of children's services here in Leeds. Their energy, enthusiasm, passion and commitment is releasing the magic in one of the toughest parts of Leeds!
Chris