Another week passes.

As I said last week, on Monday I was asked, alongside Laura from Hollinwood, to present to another trust about the work we are doing with our iPads. Sometimes the best part of doing a presentation like this one is the preparation and planning you need to do prior to the day itself. In preparing for the day, I was sent some amazing examples of how the children and young people in all our schools and settings are using technology to enable their learning.

Laura and I were able to present “early years tracking systems”, the use of large TVs to project work on from iPads, film clips, photographs and virtual and augmented reality (to name but a few). The other trust that we presented to were blown away. What, all the children and young people? All the staff? That’s our ambition and we are nearly there.

This week all the children at New Bridge School have been proudly walking round with their iPads. If you stand (or sit) still long enough, somebody comes and takes a photo of you. They’ve been dissecting virtual frogs and placing a virtual Rosetta Stone in different parts of the building. Amazing opportunities for learning.

In the middle of the week I finally managed a degree of stability! I’ve been so busy racing around different parts of the country it was great just to be able to spend some time back in the North West.

I’ve worked alongside quite a number of the heads completing their appraisals and performance management. I love this part of my job. It’s a time I get to listen and really understand what our amazing teams are involved with.

I don’t use the term amazing easily – as Lauren will tell you, I tend to use delighted much more! But on Wednesday our trust received a really pleasant surprise. Daniel Wood, our lead at Medtia, was presenting at an event in Manchester when a committee member from The Greater Manchester Combined Authority walked on to present him with a framed certificate. Our trust had been honoured with the ‘SEND Provision of the Year Award 2019’ in recognition of our commitment to improve careers education across Greater Manchester. We were delighted.

I think this is the value that working collaboratively offers all our young people. Even though finances are tight, we can offer 1:1 iPads, vocational pathways, pre-internships, employment pathways, Bridging the Gap and quality assured destinations for every single one of our children. Our Horizons provision and work programmes didn’t exist 6 years ago. Collaboration has made them possible. Spring Brook, Springboard and Hawthorns have added so much value to the work we were doing at New Bridge and Hollinwood. It’s opened up even more amazing routes of learning for our children. Next week hopefully I’ll be in a position to tell you about another amazing development for our adults based at Horizons.

There are certain times when our schools and provisions are simply amazing – now’s one of those times. No wonder Apple want to work with us!! We’ll be delighted.

Have a great weekend,

Graham

You can find all Graham’s previous blog entries here