DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY!

I always find it interesting to read that while personal income has more than doubled in the past 50 years happiness levels have got worse or remained the same. While this might be surprising, recent research has shown that only 10% of our happiness is due to our external circumstances: 50% of our happiness level comes from our genes and 40% comes from the things we do.

"WHEN; THE SCIENTIFIC SECRETS OF PERFECT TIMING"

I have always know that singing was good for me and I love singing choral music... but in his book, “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing", Dan Pink tells us that “exercise is one of the few activities in life that is indisputably good for us,” and that “choral singing might be the new exercise.” He claims that research shows us that “choral singing calms the heart and boosts endorphin levels. It improves lung function. It increases pain thresholds and reduces the need for pain medication,” Everyone should join a choir and sing!

CULTURE BEATS STRATEGY EVERY TIME!

I am not sure why it is but a lifetime of working with schools has shown me time and time again, that culture beats strategy every time!

LET'S ALL GO OUT AND BUY SOME MARBLES!

In the hurly burly of life and work and our struggle against the challenges and problems life throws at us where there is never enough time or money to get by or to get ahead, we can forget the things that matter and are really important. I was seeing an old friend last week and it's funny how those special catch ups bring everything into sharp focus.... and reminds us of the importance of being with friends, families and those we love.

This is the theory of "a thousand marbles."...

ANYONE FOR COFFEE?

This great story reminds us all about the things that really matter...

SKILL SHORTAGES IN THE UK!

I have been reading the Edge foundation Bulletin on Skill Shortages in the UK and it exposes, once again, the severity of skills shortages across the wider UK economy with over two-thirds (68%) of UK employers saying they have struggled to find workers with the skills they need in the previous year. It stresses that:

• 92 per cent of companies say soft skills matter as much or more than hard skills 
• A third of the working age population have few or no qualifications 
• The Office for National Statistics estimated that 1.5 million jobs are at high risk of automation 
• 70.2 per cent of the jobs most at risk are currently held by women.

The report’s author, Edge’s Director of Policy and Research, Olly Newton, puts it so well:

‘By bringing together analysis from across organisations and sectors, we can see this is a perfect storm. The fact that employers struggle to recruit because candidates don’t have the skills they need, shows the depth of the schism between education policy and industrial strategy.

‘The so-called ‘soft skills’ that people need to secure employment, should be called ‘critical skills’ because these are the skills, behaviours and aptitudes we need in the workplace now and to adapt to the jobs of the future. It is women, younger people and those with lower levels of skills-who are most vulnerable to being replaced by computer programs, algorithms or robots. We should be mapping our curriculum and life-long learning offer to the skills we need for 21st century jobs, not to the 19th century notion that exam grades are the only measure of talent and ability.’

EMPLOYABILITY AND ENTERPRISE!

‘Businesses are clear that the biggest drivers of success for young people are attitudes and attributes such as resilience, enthusiasm and creativity.’

CBI/Pearson Education and Skills Survey 2017

"The Fourth Industrial Revolution will have an impact like none other because automation and artificial intelligence will lead to a significant reshaping of the labour market and a loss of employment in traditional areas3. This may hit industries like logistics first through driverless vehicles but it will impact professions like law, insurance and accountancy just as significantly. If we are to stay ahead of the ‘rise of the robots’, we need to develop a new generation of creative, resilient team players who think, question and collaborate. Studying the arts is an essential part of that process."

Alice Barnard Chief Executive, The Edge Foundation

The Cultural Learning Alliance briefing paper is an important read for anyone who wants to rethink and reimagine our education offer!

OOR WULLIE'S BUCKET TRAIL!

Everywhere we went in Edinburgh this weekend we saw 'Our Wullie's and I wanted to know more!  Scotland's national treasure, Oor Wullie, is on an adventure across the country with the world's first nationwide public art trail. The 2019 Oor Wullie BIG Bucket Trail stretches across Scotland to raise money for the country's three children's hospital charities. Similar to the Sheffield Children's Hospital elephants, this is a simply great idea!!!

WEST SIDE STORY IN EDINBURGH!

My musical and artistic adventure to the Edinburgh Festival ended with a timeless love story and an electrifying spectacle performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conduced by Sir John Eliot Gardiner with a hand-picked cast from Scotland and America and special guest instrumentalists drawn from the worlds of jazz and musical theatre!  West Side Story is loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, and Leonard Bernstein’s wonderful score was a defining moment in musical theatre and the songs — ‘America’, ‘Maria’, ‘Tonight’, ‘Somewhere’, Something's Coming', 'One Hand, One Heart' — brought the audience to smiles, tears and at the end to their feet more than 60 years after the work’s premiere. Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducted as Bernstein originally intended, and this very special performance of this ground-breaking, irresistibly foot tapping work brought the house down!!

LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC, ,YUJA WANG AND GUSTAVO DUDAMEL IN EDINBURGH!

The Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel performed three pieces as the electrifying conclusion to their very special International Festival residency. Dudamel and the remarkable group of  musicians, that make up this extraordinary orchestra, opened the evening with Barber’s heartbreaking Adagio, during which you could hear a pin drop as the audience marvelled at the disciplined and focused playing. The concert lost some of it's magic during the diabolical, fiery and dischordinate John Adams 'Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?', which featured the astonishing talents of Chinese piano sensation Yuja Wang, who had previously performed in two magnificent International Festival concerts in 2015. Fortunately for us all, she played three encores which were simply wonderful and brought the house down! The concert ended with a stirring rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony which again showed what an amazingly talented, disciplined and focused team of musicians the Los Angeles Philharmonic are!! A simply incredible evening!!!

BALLETBOYZ IN EDINBURGH!

 ‘It doesn’t seem to matter what they dance. The result is always the same – fantastic’ (TheTimes).

We were privileged to see the award-winning all-male BalletBoyz making their explosive Edinburgh debut in a programme that included two works... Them and Us! Created collaboratively by the BalletBoyz dancers, THEM, with the six dancers working with a large steel cuboid frame, explored each dancer as an individual and demonstrated the versatility of movement which BalletBoyz are renowned for. In US, Tony and Olivier Award-winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon examined human connections, culminating in a tender duet which premiered in 2017 to public acclaim. With contrasting and atmospheric scores by artist Keaton Henson and composer Charlotte Harding, this brilliant double-bill brought the house down and made you want more!

THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL 2019!

Just back from the Edinburgh Festival... I love Edinburgh and this year the Festival has been amazing... managed to go to three wonderful events... the BalletBoyz, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Concert performance of West Side Story!

TOWARDS A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY EDUCATION SYSTEM!

"The crisis in our economy and education system is getting more acute by the day. The Government’s current strategy is to address these twenty-first century skills shortages using a curriculum and pedagogy from the late nineteenth century." 

KENNETH BAKER

Chair of the Edge Foundation