Forge Valley Community School

I was at Forge Valley Community School again this afternoon to see Diane McKinley, headteacher, and Rob Halliday, deputy headteacher and Mike Garnock-Jones, Schools Enterprise Champion, at their amazing new school building.

Dirk Gilleard and David Dickinson!

I met up with Dirk Gilleard and David Dickinson yesterday.

Resilience!

"What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it."

Alexander Graham Bell

Creativity, Productivity, Work and Happiness!

Some important research over the past decade has focused on creativity, productivity, work and the psychology of happiness.

Adria Steinberg’s 6 A’s of project-based learning!

We need to look more seriously at project-based learning which has been used to achieve some fantastic outcomes by High Tech High and further developed here by Learning Futures in some of their amazing programmes. As Adria Steinberg puts it "Project-based Learning provides us with the opportunity to connect with young people's interests and passions in a way that is authentic, academic, rigorous, applied and active."

Stocksbridge High School

I was at Stocksbridge High School again this afternoon to see Peter Cole, headteacher, and Claire Jackson, assistant head teacher at their amazing new school building.

Bradfield School!

I was at Bradfield School again this morning to meet Ian Gilbert, deputy headteacher.

Yewlands Technology College

I was at Yewlands Technology College again this morning to meet Angela Armytage, headteacher at this amazing learning place.

Career Academies UK!

While I was at Longley Park Sixth Form College this morning I met Berni Edge who manages the Career Academies UK programme at the college.

Longley Park Sixth Form College!

I visited Longley Park Sixth Form College in North Sheffield this morning.

Northern Ballet's Perpetual Motion!

I went to see Northern Ballet's Perpetual Motion last night. This is the company's first programme of short dance pieces in their new home on Quarry Hill which is rapidly becoming the new Leeds cultural quarter.

"We all have the ability. 

The difference is how we use it."

Stevie Wonder 

I am right! You are wrong!

I have never understood why seemingly well-intentioned advocates present alternative strategies as an either-or choice—while those of us who have been working to make a real difference for a very long time know that it's all about AND!

What Matters!

"Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well.

Experience new things. Love and be loved if at all possible. Eat sensibly."

David Nicholls

Wagner's Gotterdammerung!

I was at the City Screen in York yesterday evening to watch the Metropolitan Opera perform Richard Wagner's Gotterdammerung; the final opera in the wonderful Ring Cycle, and what a finish!

Character, Resilience and Grit!

In this bitter weather facing a landscape of serious financial problems, more and more reports of international unrest, local authority services increasingly under pressure, schools facing increasing challenge and academisation, OFSTED changing the rules and turning up unannounced and plenty of personal challenges, we all need to develop character, resilience and grit.

Norton College!

"You and I possess within ourselves,

at every moment, under all circumstances,

the power to transform the quality of our lives."

Werner Erhard

I visited Norton College in Sheffield this morning and this brilliant quote is painted on the wall of the college reception.

Read Mindset!

Who wants to be Satisfactory!

It has been a great weekend with the snow descending on Saturday night and everyone waking to to a blanket of snow on Sunday morning. The world looks so different painted white and as I look out from my room I can see a fantastic family of snow people built on the lawn next door.

"I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled.

Their virtue is lifeless and isn't of much value."

Boris Pasternak

"The great end of life is not knowledge but action."

Thomas Huxley

Futures of School Reform!

"A working group at Harvard called 'Futures of School Reform', concluded that the next frontier of education reform will acknowledge that our system can't "achieve their goal of ‘all students at proficiency’ unless they attend to non-school factors."

The Imagination Project!

Since 2007, Rita J. King and Joshua Fouts, have been collaborating on the development of imagination. Their research has been developed into an interactive site that doesn’t just present theories and ideas, but solutions that can be immediately and easily tried out. 

"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty to be happy."

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Khan Academy!

The Khan Academy provides a great model we can build on and develop. We can create a "flipped classroom" that allows us to focus on the things that work and deliver great learning and the best outcomes -- content delivery through online delivery can happen anywhere and anytime and coaching, mentoring, 121 and project-based learning can happen during school time.