Bradford secondary schools are being encouraged to take part in a programme which allows young people to train to become ambassadors for an exhibition honouring the life of the famous Jewish diarist Anne Frank.
The work encourages young people to engage in challenging issues such as human rights, prejudice, discrimination, extremism, and to look at what history tells us about the consequences of intolerance, hatred and division.
The Anne Frank History for Today is a touring exhibition which introduces young people to the lives of Anne Frank’s Jewish family in Nazi Germany, and looks at both the rise of institutional anti-semitism and the tragedy of the Holocaust.
Through Bradford Council’s Stand up, Speak out, Make a Difference programme schools can choose to host both the Anne Frank History for Today and an exhibit called Remembering Srebrenica, which has been developed by the council honouring the Bosnian Muslims killed in a massacre in 1995.
At each school up to 20 young people will be trained, by members of the Council’s Diversity and Cohesion staff, to be ambassadors who will explain the significance of these events to their peers and to pupils from visiting primary schools.
These ambassadors are also given further training with the Anne Frank Trust to allow them to act as guides for a major national touring exhibition Anne Frank and You which will be hosted in Bradford during March this year at Kala Sangam.
Geraldine Cooper, Bradford Council’s Acting Head of Diversity and Cohesion said: “The programme uses the exhibitions as a stimulus to allow young people to take part in workshop discussions about difficult issues around prejudice, hate crime and modern day genocide.
“It is a powerful education programme because it is peer led. Young people are helping other pupils to learn about history and to challenge intolerance in a way that is relevant to them. A strength of the programme is that there is no criteria for who should take part.
“Schools decide themselves which pupils should become ambassadors. Pupils can be put forward for a number of reasons and we know it can have a real impact on their confidence and the rest of their education.
“There is still some availability to have the Anne Frank History for Today exhibition come out to Bradford secondary schools this year and we would strongly recommend getting involved.”
Coun Imran Khan, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Education, Employment and Skills said: “We can be proud of the way this programme allows our young people to learn about challenging issues around intolerance and helps pupils to educate their peers about the importance of rejecting hatred.
“This programme not only allows pupils to learn important lessons from history but also helps to develop their confidence and maturity and gets them to consider the importance of the society they grow up in.”
There is limited availability for further secondary schools in the Bradford district to participate in Stand up, Speak out, Make a Difference 2017.
Byron Primary School is celebrating the recognition that pupils are getting a good education according to its latest Ofsted inspection, as is the case with other schools in the locality.
The Bradford Council school in the BD3 area of Bradford, (primarily Barkerend and Bradford Moor) was judged to be good in all areas, which is a leap from its previous judgement of Requires Improvement when it was last inspected in 2014.
In a glowing report, the inspectors, spoke of the “strong leadership” and ambitious Governors who know the school’s strengths and priorities for improvement and provide good levels of support and challenge.
“Pupils’ outcomes are improving strongly and have risen significantly since the last inspection.”
The complimentary report says: “Parents are positive about the school. They say how well adults care for their children and that they are safe at all times.”
“The curriculum is well planned to meet pupils’ needs, especially those at an early stage of learning English.”
Headteacher, Richard O’Sullivan, said: “We are delighted with Ofsted’s findings and it is clear they see the school as we do.
“This is another example of the good leadership and effectiveness of primary schools within the BD3 area, with several other schools in our locality also being judged to be Good. This is testimony to the improvements being made in our area.”
Coun Imran Khan, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Education, Employment and Skills, said: “This positive outcome is excellent news for all those at Byron Primary and all those who have worked so hard to bring about this achievement”
“It is pleasing to know that thousands of our young people have access to a Good education in our district.”
Schools in the BD3 LAP (Local Achievement Partnership)
Byron Primary, Lapage Primary, St Mary’s and St Peter’s Catholic Primary, Killinghall Primary, Dixons Marchbank Academy, Feversham Primary Academy, Westminster Primary, Barkerend Academy, Peel Park Primary and Westminster Primary Academy.
The new Carlton Police Boxing Academy was launched last week in a partnership between a Bradford school and a popular boxing club.
The state of the art facility was unveiled at Carlton Bolling College, in Undercliffe Lane.
The school has refurbished the former Duke of Edinburgh Awards Centre on its site to turn it into a community boxing gym.
The new facility is to provide a new home for the Bradford Police Boys Amateur Club, run by Julian Cyprien, which is moving from its Nelson Street base in the city.
The partnership came about after Carlton Bolling College’s Headteacher Adrian Kneeshaw visited the Bradford Police Boys Amateur Club and was impressed with the commitment of the young people involved.
Carlton Bolling College hopes that the boxing gym will prove to be a popular asset for both pupils at their school and for the wider community.
There has already been a big interest among pupils wanting to sign up at the academy ahead of today’s launch.
Mr Kneeshaw: “We are delighted to be able to provide this state of the art facility for our community in partnership with Julien Cyprien and the Bradford Police Boxing Club.
“As a school we are all about raising aspirations and promoting excellence and the Boxing Academy supports this ethos.
“We are looking forward to seeing future champions emerge from the Carlton Police Boxing Academy gym who can help to put Bradford firmly on the map.”
Coun Imran Khan, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Education, Employment and Skills said: “I am very pleased to see the new Carlton Police Boxing Academy being launched at Carlton Bolling College.
“This is a great example of one of our schools working in partnership with a sports club in Bradford to benefit both pupils and the wider community.”
British & Commonwealth Lightweight Boxing Champion, Bobby Vanzie at the official opening
Pupils and staff at St Matthew’s Catholic Primary School in Allerton have been recognised for their commitment to supporting the speech, language and communications development of every child.
The school has been awarded the “Friendly School Status”, by the ELKLAN Group a specialist in speech and language.
In order to gain the accreditation, four staff gained formal qualifications in supporting speech, language and communication needs. The training was then disseminated to all teachers and teaching assistants at St Matthew’s, enabling them to support pupils both in the classroom and the playground.
Welcome to the sixteenth edition of Educate Positive, a regular publication which highlights excellence in education and across the district’s schools and settings. In this edition we look at another successful literacy initiative coordinated by the National Literacy Trust Hub in Bradford which is being rolled out to all schools, students’ success at the Rock Challenge, and how thousands of our young people have been educated in outstanding settings for a decade.
Thousands educated in outstanding settings
Thousands of young children in our district have been learning in outstanding settings for ten years. Both Lilycroft Nursery and Midland Road Nursery School have been given the top accolade by Ofsted for the fourth consecutive time.
Ofsted inspectors praise Midland Road for using its funding innovatively “through dance and outdoor play and teachers have woven the areas of learning skilfully into these sessions”.
Lilycroft Nursery School is praised for providing high quality teaching and provision for three and four-year-olds, and a safe, warm and exciting place for children to be. .
The two inspection reports mean that more than half of the nursery schools in the Bradford district are judged to be outstanding with the others all judged to be good.
Programme which tackles intolerance brings another win for Bradford
Bradford Council’s Strategic Manager for Education Safeguarding, Alina Khan, has been named as the 2016 Community Champion for Yorkshire and the North East in the first ever Remembering Srebrenica Charity Awards for the Stand Up Speak Out Make a Difference (SUSOMAD) Programme which has been running in our schools for the last seven years.
Bradford Council’s Strategic Manager for Education Safeguarding, Alina Khan, has been named as the 2016 Community Champion for Yorkshire and the North East in the first ever Remembering Srebrenica Charity Awards for the Stand Up Speak Out Make a Difference (SUSOMAD) Programme which has been running in our schools for the last seven years.
Via Alina (pictured above) and her team thousands of young people in the district have had the chance to be part of this Diversity & Cohesion programme which has helped them to challenge and reject hatred and intolerance.
This year the SUSOMAD work has enabled more than 100 Bradford school pupils to become young ambassadors to help raise awareness of the events in Srebrenica in which more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed.
Judges at the awards, run by the Remembering Srebrenica charity, said Alina’s work had helped inspire younger generations in Bradford to make their voices heard and to learn the lessons from history.
SUSOMAD has also been working in partnership with the Anne Frank Trust UK allowing pupils to help educate other children about Anne Frank’s life and the Holocaust, through an exhibition which tours Bradford schools. Since the launch of this project 1,400 Bradford pupils have become Anne Frank ambassadors and received training to help educate their peers.
For more information please contact Alina Khan, 01274 439384.
Raise in development levels in Early Years
A joint early years project in Bradford has raised low development levels in reception-aged children by more than double the Local Authority average.
The Early Language and Literacy Project was created by Bradford Council’s early childhood services and the National Literacy Trust’s Bradford Hub, in partnership with the Bradford Birth to 19 Teaching School Alliance (led by St Edmund’s Nursery School & Children’s Centre).
The project was rolled out to eight Bradford primary schools, with children’s centres across the district also being invited to take part, which promoted opportunities for joint working and information sharing between them and the schools.
The programme had a significant impact on those eight schools and findings have resulted in:
The number of children achieving a Good Level of Development (GLD)* score increased by an average of 9%, which is more than double the LA increase
The GLD scores across the eight schools increased by 12%
The gap between boys and girls achieving a GLD score narrowed by 18%
The programme was launched in response to the low GLD scores achieved by Bradford children, an issue which was particularly pronounced in schools in Bradford’s most deprived neighbourhoods. There was also a significant gap between genders, with boys achieving significantly lower GLD scores than girls.
The GLD measure is the most widely used single measure of child development in the early years. Children are defined as having reached a GLD at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) if they achieve at least the expected level in areas including communication and language, social development, mathematics and literacy.
For more details please contact Imran Hafeez, 01274 439246 or Lynn Donohue, 01274 01274 439606.
Great win for Grove House pupils
Children who attend the Additionally Resourced Centre (ARC) at Grove House Primary School entered the Living Paintings Great Cake Bake Challenge and won! The ARC helps children who have visual impairment, and the school’s entry into the competition was inspired by the publication of the latest book from author David Melling creator of Hugless Douglas and the Great Cake Bake.
David will be making a ‘virtual visit’ to Grove House Primary to talk to the children about how he creates his books and to give them a private preview of his latest project.
For more information please contact Grove House Primary School, 01274 636921.
Poetry success for schools
Following a successful pilot in four of our schools the National Literacy Trust Hub has announced that all other primary schools in the district will have access to the Our Stories poetry programme.
The aim of Our Stories is to engage pupils with lower literacy levels by fostering a love of creative writing, with a particular focus on boys. As part of the programme, pupils took part in innovative workshops with local performance poets, who encouraged them to explore their identity, personal challenge and ambitions through poetry.
To build on the excitement of these sessions, teachers were provided with a resource pack containing a wide range of poetry activities for the classroom. Local poets and spoken word artists including Joolz Denby and Dumi Senda donated their work to be included in the pack.
One of the schools involved in the programme was Horton Park Primary.
Data from the school shows:
The percentage of Year 6 pupils writing at the expected level doubled (from 46% to 92%)
36% of pupils are now writing above the expected level
100% of the pupils who took part in the programme made good progress, and 64% made outstanding progress
As a result of the success in the pilot schools, the Our Stories resource will now be provided free to all primary schools for teachers to use with their Key Stage 2 classes. A training session will also be held in the New Year for teachers who are interested in delivering the programme. This has been made possible by generous funding from Bradford Primary Improvement Partnership (BPIP).
There will be a training session in March for schools interested in taking part in the programme. Please contact Imran Hafeez on the number below for details.
The photo shows the pupils on a visit to a local museum using what they saw to inspire their writing.
Parkside student, Jake Taglione, proved that collaborative working between schools and hospitality employers pays off as he won a place to compete in the regional final of the Springboard’s Future Chef Competition in February 2017.
Parkside student, Jake Taglione, proved that collaborative working between schools and hospitality employers pays off as he won a place to compete in the regional final of the Springboard’s Future Chef Competition in February 2017.
The Future Chef programme directly relates to the national curriculum and gives young people a life skill whilst developing their culinary skills and their understanding of nutrition.
Jake’s winning menu consisted of Gressingham duck with flambéed passion fruit followed by chocolate fondant with a stout ice-cream and a caramel tuile.
Annually over 8,000 young people take part in this programme aimed at 12-16 year olds.
For more information please contact Parkside School, T 01535 272752.
Parkside students excel at Rock Challenge
Students at Parkside displayed immense team working when they won three awards of excellence for the soundtrack, entertainment and video performance at the Rock Challenge event recently.
Students rehearsed for hours whether it was for the performance, helping backstage or working alongside the light/sound/video crew. This was an excellent experience for all concerned. Well done Team Parkside.
For more information please contact Parkside School, 01535 272752.
Copthorne receives its Challenge Award
Pupils at Copthorne Primary School made the grade when presented with the challenge of “being the best that they can be.”
The school was visited by NACE (National Association for Able Children in Education) who presented its prestigious Challenge Award at the end of last term.
NACE is a not-for-profit organisation which supports teachers to provide teaching and learning for able, gifted and talented pupils, and also provides challenge for all pupils to help them reach their potential.
The Award was about how the school was challenging all pupils but, in particular, those identified as more able and talented. The NACE assessor visited classrooms to observe lessons, carried out scrutinies of planning and work to ensure that children were being stretched at all times, interviewed pupils, parents, governors and teachers to triangulate the evidence about how our pupils are challenged. The assessor explored the school’s policies, school development plan and subject action plans to ensure that provision for More Able learners and challenge were explicit.
For more information please contact Christabel Shepherd, Head of School, 01274 501460.
If you would like to share some of your success and achievement stories in a future edition of Educate Positive please contact Alyson.hardaker@bradford.gov.uk or ring her on 01274 434673.
Why not let them join us for our half day Minecraft fun meet!
We will use Minecraft EDU on laptops to run two activities in each session. In activity one we will go on a Minecraft treasure hunt. If we have time we will move on to a building challenge.
In activity two we will learn how to record our Minecraft adventures like pro YouTubers whilst staying safe online. There will also be time to check out papercraft activities and take away a photo of you in a Minecraft world.
You do not need to bring any equipment along – all resources and laptops will be provided.
The meets are being held on Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st February
Staff and pupils at Hothfield Junior School, in Silsden, are celebrating after receiving an Ofsted report praising it for being good in all areas.
The glowing report praises the school’s headteacher, teachers, pupils and governors for Hothfield’s success.
The school’s leadership and management, quality of teaching and learning, pupils’ results and the personal development, behaviour and welfare of pupils are all rated as good.
Pupils are said to be engaged in lessons and respond well to their teachers. Ofsted said their positive attitude to learning helped pupils to make good progress.
The Ofsted report highlights the teaching of maths as a strength of the school and also praises its use of the Reading Challenge Initiative which is said to have been hugely successful in motivating pupils to read for pleasure.
Inspectors praise children at Hothfield for their behaviour. The report says they are polite and go out of their way to greet visitors or hold the doors open for others.
The school’s Headteacher James Procter said: “I am proud of the school’s pupils, parents and staff who make this school very special for the Silsden community.
“I am particularly pleased that the teaching of the maths has been highlighted as a strength of the school as we are aiming to become a centre of excellence in teaching the subject.”
Later this year Hothfield Junior School and Aire View Infants School, in Silsden, are to merge to become Silsden Primary School.
Mr Procter said: “Aire View Infants School has been inspected by Ofsted recently and was also found to be good. Later this year, our two good schools can come together to form one great primary school for Silsden.”
Coun Imran Khan, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Education, Employment and Skills said: “Hothfield Junior School’s Ofsted report makes great reading. It is positive about the work of the school and the pupils across the board. Huge credit goes to everyone involved in receiving such a good inspection report.”
Bradford Parents On The Go 