Feeling Blessed: Sibling Schools

It has been a FAB-U-LOUS start to the new academic year.

Being the founding headteacher opening a new secondary school was an exciting prospect last September. Our first year at Aureus School was full on but fantastic. We established lots, we achieved lots, we learnt lots. This September we have opened our new primary school. Our sibling school Aureus Primary School. We are just as excited a year on, opening our second school, but we are calmer, as we have a reference point for lots of the newness to build on from last year.

As an English teacher, who encourages learners to interpret the pathetic fallacy in texts, it has felt appropriate that the sun has been shining on us all week.

So Monday 3rd September was a memorable day as our Aureus team grew from 25 to 70. We can no longer fit our team into the community room nor the library for  training sessions and meetings. We now need to use the main hall to fit everyone in.

The scale up has been significant. Recruiting 45 new team members means that we interviewed in excess of 220 candidates last year. We have been inundated with applications for roles, when we long list we keep our talent pool interested in Year 2,3, opportunities as well as the live vacancies. When we shortlist we usually interview 4 candidates for operations and 6 for teaching roles. We have appointed a fantastic team and have still only paid for 3 adverts out of our 70 roles! All of the money saved goes into the staff professional learning budget. We take PLD very seriously, we are committed to our staff being life long learners.

So this year we have 17 team members based at Aureus Primary School and 53 team members based at Aureus School, but many of them are doing specialist operations roles across the two schools, such as Finance, Admissions, Catering and Site. Longer term we will have teaching roles across both schools too. As I shared the numbers of student and staff numbers over the next five years, as we grow from 25 staff and 120 students to 200+ staff and 1600+ children, I took a few deep breaths.

We spent out first day together reflecting on our values, discussing how they shape our culture and ethos, sharing how we can work together as a team on providing a holistic, values-based education for our 2-16 learners. The GLF Schools MAT is an extended family of schools, we celebrate our individuality but share our mission for education that enables our communities to grow, learn and flourish. Our Aureus Schools are siblings,  we will share our vision and values but we will interpret and embody them in a personalised way. We are not an all-through school  as we are on two sites, a 10 min walk/ 5 min drive apart, but we will come together for community events and once we have KS2 we will be able to collaborate more on the curriculum.

There has been a palpable nervous energy in  both schools all week. The 45 new staff have been understandably nervous getting their heads around new roles, new systems, new faces and a new culture. The founding team, our trail blazers have also been nervous as our small bubble, our intimate team dynamic, has changed. Everyone has a lot of change to manage, so we have taken a few moments to reflect on this.

As we welcomed our 210 Year 7s (our Class of 2023) to Aureus School on Wednesday our school began to fill busy. For those of who have come from large urban secondary schools, it began to fill like a ‘proper’ school! As we welcomed our 120 Year 8s (our Class of 2022) back on Thursday, they too were feeling apprehensive: who were all of these small people invading their space? We all have a lot of adjusting to do! My welcome back assemblies invited our learners to reflect on their Hopes, their Dreams and their Fears. We acknowledged the fact that everyone is feeling a myriad of feelings and that is okay.

Whilst the secondary team adjusted to having triple the students and double the staff in the building, the primary team spent the week in training: a new assessment system, a new phonics programme, a whole school singing curriculum. The team bonded before my eyes, the school came to life as resources were unpacked and classrooms were prepared. On Thursday Sue Webb joined us from VBE to scope the teams values. As I dipped in and out of the session emotions were high and relationships were strengthened as the team met each other with their core values, their shared vision and their collective mission.

Everyone on our Aureus team is on the same bus, heading in the same direction. A values-based recruitment process has enabled us to attract and recruit a team who are passionate about a holistic, inclusive education model. As I sat in on training sessions and meetings, I heard our values reflected back to me, I heard our shared language used, unprompted. The time and energy we have invested in our culture and ethos makes the strategy easier to implement as our why and our what is clear, it is just the how that will evolve.

In September, our value of the month is Wellbeing, we will nurture the students, the staff and the parents through the stress points of the transition into a new school, a new year group and a new role. Mindfulness is a core part of the inner curriculum at both schools. At the secondary 360 students will do a carousel of activities each morning to mentally and emotionally prepare them for learning, at the primary 110 pupils will have a micro mindfulness session at the start of each learning session, settling them as the come into the classroom from break, lunch and playing outside.

Friday was our history-making, legacy-building moment at Aureus Primary School as we formally welcomed our Reception, Year 1 and 2 pupils in to their new school for the first time. As parents, carers and pupils lined up outside our stunning new school to sign in, I smiled at the pride our pupils had in our lovely school uniform, I welled up at the beaming faces radiating their joy at joining us. I think there were more tears (of joy) from our team than there were from the children and their parents!  The pupils settled quickly into their new learning environment as their parents and carers settled their nerves with a cup of tea in the school hall.

More shared team training mid-week saw Ann Marie Christian joining us for a hard-hitting safeguarding session and our week ended with Mike Armiger from Pivotal Education delivering a dynamic session on our restorative culture with relentless compassion at its core. Our staff had spent their first week with us and had met our pupils so they could now reflect on how our values come to life in how we interact with our stakeholders, how we model our values and nurture hearts and minds, how we embody our high expectations and deliver our challenging curriculum in a holistic way.

Our first week as Aureus sibling schools was a whirlwind of activity – I met myself travelling between the two schools on several occasions and I left stuff at the wrong school/ on the wrong desk more than once but that is the change for me to get my head around, how I clone myself to support two teams, how I split my time and attention to nurture both schools. This year the plan is that I will be spending a half day at each school each day so that my presence is felt and I am a constant in both schools.   Once we settle into the routine of our working days and weeks I will review this in discussion with my four Deputy Headteachers.

So I am feeling blessed. Blessed for the opportunity to be an Executive Headteacher, blessed to now be a primary school leader after leading in secondary schools for 14 of my 15 year career, blessed to have recruited a brilliant team, blessed to have attracted a parent body who are as passionate about a holistic, values-based STEAM education as we all are!

Hannah, The Hopeful Headteacher

Currently feeling hopeful about:

• Year 2 of Aureus School and a bigger operations team to support the growing teaching team in embedding our routines and systems.
• Year 1 of Aureus Primary School and nurturing the hearts and minds of our 2 year olds who will hopefully one day become our 16 year olds and amazing Aureus Ambassadors who are values-led global citizens.

Currently reading and thinking about:

• Our new staff will be reading From the Heart by Dr Neil Hawkes this month, our trailblazing team will be reading High Challenge, Low Threat by Mary Myatt and I am going to proposed to our Aureus Leadership Team that we read Legacy by James Kerr.

Currently feeling grateful for:

• The brilliant training from Ann Marie, Sue (VBE), Jo (Voices), Natalie (GLF), Gareth (RWI) and Mike (Pivotal).
• The patience of our team as we navigate start of term issues with IT and orders!
• My fabulous PA, Zoe, who has kept the plates spinning this week, across two sites!
• Our brilliant Deputy Headteachers, Nicola, Kate, Bennie and Julie who are swans gliding through any chaos and keeping the calm at both schools.

Messages from the Heart: Volunteering in Mozambique with Action Aid

We got back from Mozambique on Wednesday and it has taken a few days to catch up on ourselves and process our experience as volunteers. It is really hard to put into words how profound our trip was. It is a bit like trying to capture a picture of a beautiful sunset/ sunrise when you know the image is not going to do that moment true justice.

The opening ceremony was a full community welcome to the Condlana Primary School. As our minibus bounced down the sandy road, we could see a crowd and a group of children stood up and stepped forwards with their Choir Director. They started singing and I felt my heart pound and my eyes fill before I had even climbed off of the bus! It was also hard to get off of the bus as we were swamped by everyone eagerly wanting to welcome us with a smile and a high 5.

The whole school and the local community had come out to see us to put on a welcome ceremony, on a Sunday afternoon, to bless the building site and project before we started the next day. We were treated to songs from the pupils, speeches from the community officials, a theatre performance from the school’s girl leadership group, and dancing from the local community. Which of course we were obliged to join in with!

Seeing the reality for ourselves for the first time, emphasised why we were there. The school serves 450 pupils. The school has 3 classrooms. The pupils attend school in shifts, morning or afternoon sessions, or are taught outside, under the trees on the school grounds. Our fundraising and volunteering would create 2 new classrooms for the school and the community to use. More space than they currently have but still not enough in reality. Mozambique is by far the poorest African country  I have visited and the reality of how little resources the community have was stark.

We could really see and feel the difference the classrooms would make to the children and the community. We felt the pressure to rise to the challenge and do our best for them in the short time we had there. We also felt compelled to fully invest in this community and not just donate some money and leave.

Before we could start the building work we needed to pay our respects to the stakeholders invested in the project so we  visited the Action Aid Mozambique office to meet the team and went to the District Governor’s office, where we learnt about the challenges they face in the district where their budgets dictate their teacher training and deployment, where they are handcuffed by the state over school expansion, repairs and resourcing. Education is valued, but not prioritised. They expressed their sincere thanks to our team for helping to provide a better education for the children in the district.

We could then finally head to the school site and start the building work. Our first job was digging trenches and flattening where the classroom floor will go. We also spotted the school farm/ garden area which was a patch of wilderness and we decided to help tame that by clearing the surrounding area and defining the boundary.  Our enthusiasm, spirits and energy were high and we could quickly see the fruits of our labour begin to take shape.

As the week progressed we moved from digging and hoeing to metal work to create the supporting structures that would be concreted in to create the shape of the building and to reinforce the supporting walls. Everything was done by hand, everything was moved by hand. We developed lots of new practical skills and found muscles we did not even know we had!

It is fair to say that nothing is easy in this context, in this climate. As a team we moved truck loads of breeze blocks, sand, stones, water and concrete back and forth across the site in buckets, wheel barrows and by hand. As we did this the locals watched and followed, we communicated with smiles and hand gestures as they had no English and we had no Portugese! Despite this we operated as one team. It is funny how relationships and friendships can be built through eye contact and facial expressions alone. There was laughter, a lot of laughter, as the local women with babies tidied to their backs in a cloth, carried more water on their heads than we could carry in a bucket in two hands!  And yes we did the obligatory try and carry water on our heads in a bucket!

 

Moreover, everything we did had an audience, as the children who were not in lessons shyly observed our every move. They grew in confidence and were desperate to help us. Again with no language, through modelling, they quickly understood what we needed and would help us collect sticks for the fence, stones for weights. They were keen to be involved, eager to please and followed our every move. Every time I turned around from doing a task, a support group of smiley faces and helping hands would appear.

The school site was littered with debris, as there is no bin collection in this area and there are no school bins, litter is a real issue throughout the country in fact. We wanted the school community to take pride in their space, so we started a litter pick. A few of us started it quietly, quickly filling bags up with food wrappers, broken glass, decaying fruit and ripped sheets from old school books. The word spread and a large group of children came running, picking up bin bags, buckets and wheel barrows, keen to help us. In less than an hour we had filled 20+ bags. The smiles on their faces as we high-fived them all to say well done and good job really touched us. As we went to take a water break, the litter picking continued in our absence and the new game became one of them being the teacher high-fiving everyone saying “good job” which made us smile.

Cement mixing to form concrete for the next layer of the floor became the next mammoth task before we could start building the walls and really see the classrooms coming together. The team of local builders said with 20 extra pairs of hands that they achieved in a week what they would have achieved in a few months. As you can imagine when they heard they had a group of 20 women coming to help them build they were a little bit alarmed, but we showed them how tenacious and hard working we are.

We might not have been skilled and we might have lacked experience on a building site but we made up for it in enthusiasm and energy! There was no whingeing from the team, no-one gave up, the resilience and the ‘can do’ attitude was testament to what a brilliant group of volunteers we had.  If anything Ant, our building project lead, a volunteer from the UK had to keep telling us to pace ourselves and take a break. We applied ourselves as we do in our schools, making every minute matter!

Alongside the building work there were also opportunities to connect with the community and understand more about the challenges they face as children and as adults. We sat in on lessons, we met the Girls’ Leadership Group, we met the local teachers and we met the Women’s Reflection Circle. It was meeting 35 adults who walk 3-7km once a week for Literacy lessons that really moved me. They were so grateful for our support in expanding the school site. Before they started the adult classes, they could not read and write to the extent that they could not catch a  bus as they did not know the destination and they could not sign paperwork. Over the 2/3 year programme they had closed the gap on the skills they had missed out on at school.

In Mozambique only 40% of children stay on for secondary school and only 10% of the country are employed. The local Women’s Circle shared their gratitude in improving the life changes for them and their families. This safe space enables to them to support each other through issues of domestic violence and learning literacy.

They were keen to show us their new skills. As they stood up and moved into a circle around the black board, they broke into song. They sang a beautiful harmony together as they passed the chalk between them and came to the board to show us they could now write. It is moments like this that we will not forget. It is moments like this that donating money to a charity without seeing how it will be spent and without appreciating the impact it has on the lives on others does not capture. It really made us realise the wider impact the classroom build will have on the wider community.

    

The song was poignant and uplifting, so with tears in our eyes we went back to continue our work on the school site. The classroom walls finally began to take shape and we saw the building rise above ground level! We took it in turns joining the mortaring team to cement the gaps between the breeze blocks.

As the school’s classrooms progressed we also finished off sourcing and creating 90 meters of fencing around the school garden we had rejuvenated for the community. We planted maize, peanuts and cassava with the help of the local women.  We are proud of what we have achieved, but we are also conscious that we are just scratching the surface of the external support that this community needs.

The farewell ceremony from the community was emotional to say the least. We had arrived as a group of strangers, to do our bit, we were leaving as a team of friends, with a special place in our hearts for this humble village community in southern Mozambique. Maria, the headteacher and her school community, showed their gratitude to us through singing and dancing. The speeches from each community stakeholder group were moving. Our translator explained the heart felt thanks. The “messages from the heart” of each person who spoke heightened the emotion in the community circle, under the trees, beside our build. A teacher representative thanked us for working shoulder to shoulder as equals with the community. A community representative thanked us for not “bringing fish, but bringing fishing rods and for teaching us how to fish”. The impact of us getting our hands dirty, of teachers giving up their summer holidays, of mothers leaving their children behind to volunteer were sincerely appreciated. The legacy we had co-created was the beginning, not the end of our collaboration.

Nancy impressed everyone by learning a few words of Portugese to articulate our gratitude for the  warm welcome we had received. We then handed over our gifts of books, pens and pencils, balls. Basic school resources for us that would be treasured in their community.  Our final gift as a group was to sing. Overnight we had learnt the lyrics and the tune to ‘Lean On Me’ to perform to them in exchange for their singing and dancing for us. We gave it everything we had and sang our hearts out –  we stood and took our applause with smiles on our faces and tears in our eyes. Apparently there is video footage which we are yet to see/ hear!!

The women of the community then gifted us all beautifully patterned wraps, which they dressed us in to sing us and dance us off to our bus to much hilarity from everyone!

Following the closing ceremony we headed to Maputo for our final night together, and we were joined for dinner by staff from Action Aid Mozambique and the local partner Nadec. I had been too emotional on our last night in Bilene to give a speech but had promised Jill and Nancy I would say a few words after dinner. I emotionally thanked everyone for joining us on this project. When we talk about being #10%braver in the #WomenEd community this experience and journey has been more like being #100%braver for some of our group. Many of our team were totally out of their comfort zone flying alone, fundraising a large sum of money, leaving their families at home,  travelling with strangers, using a hoe/ shovel/ trowel, singing in public, eating local cuisine to name just a few of the experiences and challenges each person faced.

#10%prouder does not really encapsulate what a wonderful group of friends we have made, what brilliant memories we have made, but more importantly what a significant impact we have made on another community. We are already talking about arranging a return visit in summer 2020 so watch this space.  If you are interested in potentially joining us send me an email to wilsonh@glfschools.org and we will be in touch once we know whether it is possible to develop the connections we have made.

So a big thank you to everyone who has supported us and this project – your generosity has really helped this community. Action Aid are a brilliant charity and the work they are doing for girls’ education globally, but for us in Mozambique is significant, but it is going to take a lot of time, energy and resources to maximise their impact. We are going to continue our fundraising to ensure these classrooms are resourced and that future projects are full funded. A family in Mozambique lives on 90p a day, any contributions would be gratefully received here.

Hannah, The Hopeful Headteacher

Currently feeling hopeful about:

• The difference that charities like Action Aid make.

Currently reading and thinking about:

• I read my first fiction book in a very long time this summer – the new Dorothy Koomson.
• I still have a pile of EduBooks to read once my head is back in work mode!

Currently feeling grateful for:

• The generosity of the volunteers who gave up time and energy to help the building project.
• The support of our PLN who donated to fund the project.

Leading Beyond the School Gates: Liminal Leadership

Yesterday, at our #WomenEd Festival of Leadership at Warwick University, I co-facilitated a session on Leading Beyond the School Gates with Annemarie Williams, one of our #WomenEd East Midlands Regional Leaders and someone who has become a very good friend. Annemarie gets all the credit for planning a brilliant session as it fell off of my to do list this week!

We have dubbed ourselves ‘Wilson and Williams’ as we have started co-planning and co-delivering workshops on things we are passionate about as we are on the same page about education. Annemarie is a primary CEO and I am a secondary Headteacher, we are both values-led in our approaches. We both believe in authenticity and are committed to being ethical leaders, guided by our moral compasses.

We are both passionate about is the opportunities to lead beyond school, in our communities, which develop leadership skills which can be brought back in to our schools and our classrooms. These liminal leadership opportunities are often forgotten about or not given the value and the status on our CVs, in our applications and in our interviews that they should be.

Our group’s opening reflections and discussions about what ‘Leading Beyond the School Gates’ threw up some interesting points. We talked a lot about being human in our leadership, about the hierarchies in some of our schools and the stakeholder engagement needed by school leaders.

Below are some of the things we discussed and the questions we used to frame the discussion for your consideration.

Great Leaders Make Great Schools – what is the impact of this on leaders?

• Vision and values – moral purpose, define the mission for all
• Exceptional leadership – learning focused, accountable, inspiring
• Ethic of excellence  – high expectations for all
• Pedagogy – the craft of teaching and learning
• Culture  – teamwork and collaboration
• Outward facing – research, collaboration, a culture of learning, innovation
• Joy – the enjoyment and buzz of learning, should be tangible

What is your WHY of leadership?

Simon Sinek’s ‘Start With Why’ is a book I keep going back to. We need to be articulate our why for being a teacher but also our why for stepping up to lead. The first hurdle is owning the fact that you are a leader. I anticipated that some of the people in our room did not see themselves as leaders, by the end our session they could articulate that they were leaders as they are influencing others.

Considering Servant Leadership we discussed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of this leadership style.

The concept of servant leadership is one that is both seductive and dangerous. The phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader, an essay that he first published in 1970. In that essay, Greenleaf said:

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead”.

Servant leaders focus on the needs of the organisation and the communities they serve first and foremost and on developing the people within the organisation for the greater good of the whole community.

We framed our perspective as educators who have become leaders and who have used external opportunities to develop our leadership qualities, but we also shared our perspectives as recruiters, who assess candidates for what they can bring to our schools.

What other ways are there to grow as  leader?

We shared what we are passionate about, things we have done to go above and beyond outside of school and more importantly how  we can use these liminal leadership opportunities as evidence of our leadership skills.

Volunteering:

I am a School Governor, a MAT Trustee, a DFE Coach and the National Leader of #WomenEd.

Travel:

I have participated in Camp America, Raleigh International and LRTT.

Community Projects:

I am going to Mozambique with Action Aid this year.

Challenges:

Coaching has helped me overcome personal and professional challenges, which have also developed by emotional resilience.

Self-Study Courses:

I love attending, speaking at and hosting grassroots CPD. #Teachmeets, #Leadmeets and #Coachmeets have deepened by passion and my knowledge of educational leadership over the last few years.

Reading and Research:

Our school bookclub, our @WomenEdBookClub and Twitter chats like #SLTchat have helped to shape my thinking.

What is the Impact?

• Demonstrates how you walk and talk your values
• Opportunities to develop transferable skills such as creativity, communication and relationship building, planning and project management, problem solving etc
• Brings new learning, content and perspective
• Helps build future connections and relationships
• Scientific studies show that helping others boosts happiness. It increases life satisfaction, provides a sense of meaning, increases feelings of competence, improves our mood and reduced stress.

Annemarie then made the link between community leadership, the qualities we develop and how this links to the future of  careers and employability:

The World Economic Forum recently published “The Future of Jobs” outlining the skills that will be most needed by 2020, and guess what? Social skills are leading the way. In a world where technology seems to be king and the power of social media is ever growing, it is our human connectivity and ability to build relationships, will decide who is ready for the new world.

“Overall, social skills such as persuasion, emotional intelligence and teaching others will be in higher demand across industries than narrow technical skills.”

What did we learn? How did we grow as a leaders?

• That transferable skills can be developed anywhere, any time
• That failure can be the stepping stone to a new pathway
• That resilience can be developed

So we ask you to reflect and consider:

What are the experiences that have shaped you as a leader?

What are the possible new development opportunities you have yet to explore?

And more importantly, how will you harness these leadership opportunities, how will you capture them in your applications and how will you evidence they impact they have had on your leadership development?

Hannah, The Hopeful Headteacher

On behalf of Wilson and Williams, coming to an EduEvent near you soon!

Currently feeling hopeful about:

• More people recognising that leading beyond our school gates, leading in liminal spaces and leading in our communities is a legitimate way to informally develop leadership skills.

Currently reading and thinking about:

• I am reviewing Wholesome Leadership by Tom Rees for TES.

Currently feeling grateful for:

• Making brilliant friends for life through #WomenEd – another reason to volunteer your time, energy, experience and expertise!
• Having a diverse PLN of inspiring changemakers!

Appendix:

I recommend that you read Liminal Leadership by the fabulous Stephen Tierney. Furthermore that you watch this #TEDxNorwichEd Talk by the brilliant Marianna Cantwell who also talks passionately about existing in the grey space between the black and the white.

Global Mindset, Global Community: Global Citizenship

To celebrate #IWD18 and to help our Year 7 students understand why we need to #pressforprogress,  we held a Global Citizenship Day this week to develop awareness and deepen understanding of our values of Diversity and Equality.

Being an outward-facing school we have been overwhelmed by the number of invitations we have received to connect and collaborate with so many brilliant organisations who can bring value to our school community and who can help us give our Year 7 students a global perspective to contrast their life experience in Didcot, Oxfordshire.

The UN Global Goals for sustainable development inform our weekly Global Citizenship programme of activity that Julie Hunter our DHT curates superbly. At Aureus we do not do PSHE days, SMSC audits, Citizenship lessons – we have one integrated programme that integrates all of this key learning into one cohesive and coherent delivery.

We used this day as an opportunity to develop some partnerships through a carousel of thought-provoking workshops. It was a fantastic opportunity to expose our students to external voices and experiences whilst exploring the rights of girls. Our values of respect and responsibility  were developed as our students’ understanding grew.

LyftaEd

Serdar the founder of LyftaEd flew in from Finland to work with Amjad our AHT on a series of immersive storytelling workshops using the virtual technology platform his team have built. As an English and Media Studies teacher, as someone who travels a lot this resource is brilliant in exploring identity and representation. In the 15 minutes I was in the room we were in a Finnish family’s kitchen meeting a female weight lifter and we met a male ballerina in the Czech Republic in an opera house. The power of technology to transport our young people to places around the globe to create human connections and understanding of ourselves as global citizens is remarkable.

You can find out more about this brilliant platform here.

Oxfordshire Museums

Kelly Smith who works at Pitts Museum, initiate a project with us and a local artist to explore the history of Didcot and how this frames our identity as a school. Her colleague Sue Wright joined us to work with Lorna, a local artist and Laura our Art Lead Practitioner Designate. Using The Didcot Mirror as inspiration, each student has designed a piece to contribute to our art installation for our official opening ceremony in a few weeks’ time. Linking our Roman history with our future as a values-led school through our identity will create a sense of belonging for our students. The art installation entitled ‘Light up our Lives’ will hang above our heads in our weekly assembly.

Pictures to follow when it is installed next week!

Youth For Change 

Shamil and the team from Youth For Change delivered an interactive session on gender equality. The students were very informed about the cultural stereotypes for boys and girls, the social constructs they are defined and confined by. This was a segway to the rights of girls/ women and the challenges they face through the cultural practices of  FGM, ECM and HBV.

You can find out more about their #traintoprotect outreach here.

Sexplain

Amelia is a force to be reckoned with. Delivering brilliant SRE sessions she used play dough as a resource to start a dialogue about sex education. With the prevalence of the #MeToo campaign the dialogue around consent and behaviours/ attitudes to sex and relationships is of vital importance to our students.

Find out more here.

I was really very proud of our students on our inaugural Global Citizenship Day – the feedback we received from our visitors on their sense of self, their understanding  of how they belong, their desire to be changemakers in their community/ our world and their articulation of their values was very touching. Through our VBE frame we focus on the ethical vocabulary that our children have and how they communicate their thoughts and feelings.

Hannah, The Hopeful Headteacher

Currently feeling hopeful about:

• The opportunity to shape global citizens who understand their identity, who have a sense of belonging, and who will contribute positively to the world.

Currently reading and thinking about:

• I am prepping Aureus for the VBE schools accreditation process whilst Julie Hunter our DHT is prepping us for our Rights Respecting School accreditation process. External validation of the work we are doing through our values-based education will help us to educate our prospective parents and carers about our work.

Currently feeling grateful for:

• The teams at LyftaEd, Oxford Museums, Sexplain and Youth for Change who made this day possible for our staff and our students.