Gallery

Our gallery shows a selection of photographs from across our Academy.

CEO’s Blog – 24th March 2023

CEO's Blog - 24th March 2023 Our Organisation... The weeks are flying by and we're nearly at the end of the Spring term, so here's a snapshot of life at every one of our schools and settings. We're growing all the time, but our offer remains the best in special...

CEO’s Blog – 17th March 2023 – ‘Thank You!’

CEO's Blog - 17th March 2023  'Thank You!'   Well, if you've been following the updates on social media this week, you might just have noticed that almost 100 of our young people have been lucky enough to travel to Disneyland Paris. A trip that started on Monday...

CEO’s Blog (10th March 2023)

CEO's Blog (10th March 2023)   It was International Women's Day this week, and it was great to see our schools and settings marking the occasion with their activities and learning opportunities. Of course, we shouldn't only celebrate our women and girls for just...

We are looking for our next CEO…

We are looking for our next CEO... It's probably been the worst kept secret for a while, but I'm writing my blog this week to let everyone know that we are actively looking for the next CEO of the New Bridge Multi Academy Group and MAT. After many years working as...

CEO’s Blog – Student Voice (24th February 2023)

CEO's Blog - Student Voice (24th February 2023)   A few weeks ago, before the half term break, I said I would be reporting on how we listen to the Student Voice across our MAT and wider Group. Well, this week, I'm able to do just that, as some of our schools and...

Today we spent the whole day in Cupertino, California.

Brent Frey, the Director of Education at Apple, gave us an amazing insight into how Apple supports schools in the USA.

It was interesting to note that a significant number of schools (especially in the South) still don’t have good internet connectivity.

We had a discussion about school leadership and what makes a great school leader. The USA faces similar challenges and problems to those we face within the UK, notably the significant pressure for children to perform in Literacy and Maths, both at state and national level. Brent also mentioned the skills gap in the USA and the need to develop more skills relating to creativity, team working and co-operation. Stand up all our teams involved in the development of the dashboard!

He mentioned that the three key issues for the USA as he saw them were:

  • Academic achievement
  • Equity
  • Social and emotional well-being

They don’t appear that different to our challenges!

There was a significant discussion about what a basic skill set is today. Many colleagues felt that the areas of personalisation, team working, problem solving, collaboration, resilience and decision making were paramount. Calling them ‘soft skills’ no longer appears sensible.

We were then introduced to Dr Jon Landis who gave a fascinating insight into the development of the use of technology within the classroom. From 2013 and onwards, the use of mobile phone devices to obtain information has now overtaken the use of laptops, PCs etc. Jon argued that we are living through a significant historic event in relation to the information exchange..

He gave us a quick run through of the power of the accessibility features on all Apple devices. Our schools really need to make better use of these.

Sue Meyer, an educational lead, gave us a presentation on values and culture. We were able to define culture as the way we do things – defined by our core values. She gave a wonderful example of a school leader stating that ‘culture is what happens in your school when I’m out of the building.’

We were introduced to Simon Sinek through a TED talk, ‘How great leaders inspire action’.

Steve Jobs was quoted as stating,

Apple is about people who think outside the box, people who want to use computers to help them change the world, to help them create things that make a difference and not just get a job done.

Another great day!

Graham

You can find the latest from Graham’s visit here

Location

New Bridge Multi Academy Trust
Roman Road
Hollinwood
Oldham
OL8 3PH

School Hours

M-F: 8am – 4pm
Weekends: Closed

Phone & Email

0161 870 9386

info@newbridgegroup.org