Gauguin, 'Maker of Myth'!

I went to the Gauguin 'Maker of Myth' exhibition at Tate Modern this afternoon...

It was a wonderful collection of Gauguin's work which I have loved almost all my life. The exhibition brings together works from Paris, Martinique, Brittany,Tahiti and the Marquesas.
Chris

Matthew Bourne's Cinderella

I went to see Matthew Bourne's Cinderella last night...


It was being performed at Sadler's Wells and the sets were simply amazing. It was set in London during the Second World War and was full of Matthew Bourne's trade mark elements. It was good but not great like Swan Lake which has that spectacular music! I suppose the thing it really lacked was the passion and presence of an Adam Cooper as the male lead. Still if like me you love the arts it was another night to remember.
Chris

Cezanne's 'The Card Players'

I visited the Courtauld Gallery this afternoon...

It is a wonderful little place full of magic and their current exhibition features Cezanne's 'The Card Players' is an outstanding display of the work of this amazing artist.

I also saw one of my favourite Van Gogh paintings...

Chris

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Another New Year...

I hope that everyone who reads my new blog has a happy, healthy, safe and successful 2011 and that it brings you and those you love and care about, peace, fulfillment and all the things you really, really want and hopefully and most importantly to love what you are doing and to simply be happy!

It is certainly going to be an interesting year!
Keep the faith...
Chris

A PASSIONATE ENTERPRISE!

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing."

John Maxwell

People constantly tell me that things are impossible. They tell me that you can't get every child to read by the time they are seven or eight. That every child can’t be a brilliant little learner by the time they leave primary school. That you can't get every young person the equivalent of 5 good GCSEs including English and maths by the time they are sixteen. That every school can't be a great school. That you can't create great teams with the current people.

However, we all know that success doesn't come in can'ts it comes in cans. We know that in schools, in classrooms, in staffrooms, in organisations and even in Councils great things are happening. You simply need to change the culture and get people to believe; to believe in themselves and to believe in children and young people and colleagues. The next person who tells you it's impossible with these children, these young people, these families or these colleagues, tell them that if you believe anything is possible and that achieving the impossible is nothing! Then contact me and I'll help you find and release the magic.

Chris

NEW BEGINNINGS!

This has now become my working blog where I will record my adventures, my stories and share what I have learned so that we can continue to share, network and learn together...

In Wolverhampton, North Yorkshire, York and for the last ten years in Leeds I have been working with some extraordinary colleagues releasing the magic in schools, in local authorities and in private companies.  I know how to do this and I know colleagues who can help wherever you are on the journey. I have worked with organisations large and small for the last twenty years and whether you want to look in your classroom, your staffroom, your school, your authority, your company or your organisation I can help you to go from ordinary to extraordinary.  

Nothing is impossible and if you think I could help you on your journey, I would welcome discussing any opportunities that there might be to work with you. I would love to use my experience of leadership development, cultural change and organisational development to help you release the magic... wherever you are and whatever it takes!

Keep the faith! 

Chris

A NEW BEGINNING!

I have now left Education Leeds...

Education Leeds is winding up over the next three months and everyone keeps asking about the legacy the company will leave in Leeds. It's important that people understand that our success in Leeds wasn't about Education Leeds, the stars, the quotes and the messages; it was about cultural change  and organisational development that switched on, empowered and engaged thousands of talented, brilliant, gorgeous and wonderful human beings who believed in the power to change and have changed forever to become extraordinary people and releasing real magic across the city of Leeds.

Over the last ten years I have made so many friends and I promised I will keep in touch with them all. If you are a friend or if you just need my help you can e-mail me at chrisedwards51@hotmail.com or just leave me a message on this,my new, blog www.releasing-the-magic.blogspot.com.

Nothing is impossible... keep the faith.

Hope to see you soon!

Chris

RE-IMAGINING FOR A CONCEPTUAL AGE

With the publication of the latest PISA research, the Schools White Paper and the changes that are happening to educational systems across the world, everyone seems engaged in a superficial and somewhat futile attempt to chase the answers to what makes brilliant, and to simply ignore the reality that educational policy and planning need to undergo significant change as we prepare for a new conceptual age ...

School systems internationally are wrestling with how we can educate for the new order; the new globalised economies, the creative and intellectual demands of new institutions and cultures, complex multilingual and multi-ethnic cultures and religions, and a more critical, informed and cosmopolitan population. Getting rid of beaureacracy, developing school-based accountability, encouraging the market, freeing up the curriculum and the powerful use of new technologies will help to address these problems but without fundamental consideration of teaching and learning and classroom practice we are stuck on our journey to outstanding.
Chris

WHAT MAKES A SCHOOL SUCESSFUL?

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has just published its 2009 results...

"One section of the hugely important report looks at how the issues of autonomy, evaluation, governance and choice interact in providing a framework in which schools are given the incentives and the capacity to improve. The PISA analysis for 2009 finds that:
• In countries where schools have greater autonomy over what is taught and how students are assessed, students tend to perform better.
• Within countries where schools are held to account for their results through posting achievement data publicly, schools that enjoy greater autonomy in resource allocation tend to do better than those with less autonomy. However, in countries where there are no such accountability arrangements, the reverse is true.
• Countries that create a more competitive environment in which many schools compete for students do not systematically produce better results.
• Within many countries, schools that compete more for students tend to have higher performance, but this is often accounted for by the higher socio-economic status of students in these schools. Parents with a higher socioeconomic status are more likely to take academic performance into consideration when choosing schools.
• In countries that use standards-based external examinations, students tend to do better overall, but there is no clear relationship between performance and the use of standardised tests or the public posting of results at the
school level. However, performance differences between schools with students of different social backgrounds are, on average, lower in countries that use standardised tests."

We should all read this important report and use it to continue to learn and develop wht we re doing to build a world class education and learning system for all our children and young people.
Chris

LEADERSHIP MATTERS!

"School systems that have successfully ignited reforms and sustained their momentum have all relied on at least one of three events to get them started: they have either taken advantage of a political or economic crisis or commissioned a high-profile report critical of the system's performance, or have  appointed a new, energetic or strategic leader. The role of new leadership is a common and particularly important pattern in igniting school system reforms, occurring in all of the improving systems we have studied. The evidence suggests that leaders that are successful in directing  system's improvement journey are characterised by taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by their being new to the role, in following a common 'playbooks' of practices, and in their longevity, having a much lengthier tenure than is the norm."
McKinsey 'How the world's most improved school systems keep getting better'.

THE JOURNEY!

"For a system's improvement journey to be sustained over the long term, the improvements have to be integrated into the very fabric of the system pedagogy. We have identified three ways that improving systems do this: by establishing collaborative practices, by developing a mediating layer between the schools and the centre, and by architecting tomorrow's leadership. Each of these aspects of sustaining improvement is an interconnected and integral part of the system pedagogy."
McKinsey 'How the world's most improved school systems keep getting better'.

The McKinsey report clearly identifies the need for cooperative and collaborative practice to drive system improvement. This approach to professional development within a powerful learning community needs a supportive. disciplined and focused mediating team to network, support and drive system development and to develop system leadership.
Chris

PRAGMATISM AND COMMON SENSE!

"To begin with, our knowledge grows in spots. The spots may be large or small but the knowledge never grows all over: some old knowledge always remains what it was. Your knowledge of pragmatism, let us suppose, is growing now. Later its growth may involve considerable modification of opinions which you previously held to be true. But such modifications are apt to be gradual."
William James

WE PROVIDE A VITAL AND ESENTIAL SERVICE!

It has been an extraordinary week for all the wrong reasons as the weather buried us in snow and ice, schools closed and traffic around the city ground to a halt...

I still managed to meet with a small group of secondary headteachers who had made it to their regular meeting at Weetwood Hall. It was great to sit and listen to these talented colleagues as they discussed the Schools White Paper; 'The Importance of Teaching' which signals a radical reform agenda with an ambition to be world-class. I also spent an afternoon with five hundred children, parents, teachers and dance coaches at the Town Hall where we all celebrated RJC 'Dance Heats Project 9'. This is the ninth year that this wonderful project has run and this afternoon was a brilliant celebration of the work and the achievements of the children and teachers who have participated in the project over the last three months. Over 500 young people from sixteen schools in the Elmet Partnership of Schools have taken part in what is a unique and exciting dance project with the fabulous team from RJC Dance. And finally I spent a morning at the STEPS celebration at Weetwood Hall. It was another wonderful celebration of some amazing colleagues and some wonderful parents and carers. STEPS changes lives and the stories we have heard from these talented individuals make this programme one of the most important things we do and I am deeply grateful to my colleagues Chris Bennett and Val Cain who have worked so hard to deliver these programmes across Leeds over the last six years.

Colleagues also attended the fifth Local Government Yorkshire and Humber 'Making a Difference' awards last week. These awards celebrate the achievements of local authorities across the region and recognise the hard work and commitment of teams and individuals across councils, police, fire service and national park authorities. This year there was only one nomination from Leeds and it is brilliant that this was a partnership between the council's International Relations team and the Gypsy Roma Traveller achievement service within Education Leeds  - and they won!

After a tough week, where I wrestled with a bad back, snow and ice, I was interviewed by Andrew Edwards on BBC Radio Leeds Drive Time about the snow and school closures. We are once again being criticised for shutting schools but as I woke up very early this week I heard that phrase again and again... "if your journey is not essential the advice is to stay indoors". I am encouraged by the uproar about school closures because it reminds us that schools, at the heart of what we do, are an essential service for so many children and young people and their parents and carers. While the weather has challenged everyone of us this week, as we struggled in through blizzard conditions along icy and treacherous roads, we should always remember that we provide a vital and essential service to the children and young people of Leeds.

          Chris