The light and dark sides of social media

18th November 2021Leanne Tonks

Date: 18/11/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

Social media can be an amazing thing. It helps us to keep in touch with friends and family when we aren’t close by. It can support the running of clubs through sharing of information on key events. It allows us to communicate with people with similar interests. In many aspects of life, such as in education, it allows the sharing of ideas and resources to improve what we do.

However, social media also has a dark side. It can be used to spread hate as well as good. It can be used to attack or troll people, often without justification just because someone holds a different opinion. It has even been used to arrange acts of violence and terrorism.

On balance, I believe that social media probably tips the scales more on the side of good than bad. Its use is part of everyday life for most of us and the challenge is to ensure that we use it appropriately and responsibly. If we can do this, then we can role model this to our children and teach them to use it positively.

During the last week, there has been a lot of national media coverage on some of the abuse directed at secondary school staff on TikTok. This is something that sadly a large number of schools across the country have experienced and had to deal with. Like many such trends, it will disappear over time, particularly as both TikTok and the police have taken steps to remove these accounts and deal with the culprits.

However, this particular problem poses a wider question: do we really know what our children are accessing and posting online? Besides the current trend on TikTok, sadly the worst abuse of social media by pupils tends to be its use to bully other pupils.

I believe that the work we do in our schools on anti-bullying and e-safety means that our children are well aware of the rules and boundaries, such as many social media sites having a minimum age of 13 to use them. However, many children do have access to unsupervised use of mobile phones, etc. for a significant period of time each week.

The onus is for us as parents and carers to make sure that we ask questions and check their use of social media. Many of us, and I include myself here as a parent, need to do more to ensure that we keep our children safe from the possibility of harm from the misuse of social media. This can be very challenging but it is about us protecting our children.

For your child’s use of social media, the NSPCC has some really good support for parents and carers https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/ and the staff in all of our schools can also support you if you have a particular concern about your child.

Thinking locally to act globally

11th November 2021Leanne Tonks

Date: 11/11/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

The COP26 summit in Glasgow comes to an end tomorrow. While some progress has been made towards reducing the impact of global warming, many people may feel that this is not enough. To some extent this seemed inevitable, with the huge challenge of trying to get countries with huge differences in levels of development and wide variations in technology and resources to agree on common actions for change.

Many of us want to act in a ‘greener’ way, but at times we lack the leadership and guidance as to how to do this. It’s also easy to feel overwhelmed at the sheer size of the problem. In the face of this, the actions of an individual or family can feel almost pointless.

When I was at school, I remember learning a story about a shepherd in France who worked completely on his own to replant a forest in a valley which had become a wasteland after deforestation. The shepherd collected and planted 100 acorns every day over a period of years. While only one in ten acorns actually grew and matured into oak trees, over a number of years it became a forest with tens of thousands of trees. A huge variety of animals and plants returned to the valley and rivers which had dried up started flowing again.

The story was called “The Man Who Planted Hope and Grew Happiness” by Jean Giono. Jean was a French writer who had travelled to the valley and met the shepherd when he had just started planting. Over the years Jean returned many times and saw the forest come back to life. When Jean returned to meet the shepherd, then aged 87, for a final time, the task of keeping planting the seeds had been passed on to a whole group of local villagers and the forest continued to grow.

I’ve always felt that this story not only shows us that an individual can make a huge difference, but it also demonstrates the impact of a strong vision and leadership. I think that all of us have the potential to lead others in a positive change if given the right opportunity.

Last week, I wrote about how I want our pupils to have the opportunity to show their leadership skills to find ways of making their school greener and helping tackle climate change. Today we are launching a competition which will create this opportunity for pupils in all of our NCEAT schools. We very much hope that we will have some winning ideas that will help us make a real difference to the environment around each school, showing our pupils that their ideas and leadership can make a real difference.

We might have some entries that involve planting trees but the most important part of the competition is about planting the ideas that individuals and groups can genuinely make a difference through their leadership and actions.

Find out more about the new CEO’s Pupil Leadership Award and the #COP26 competition.

COP26 and its legacy for our children and grandchildren

4th November 2021Leanne Tonks

Date: 04/11/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

History books are often filled with stories of dramatic battles or heroic actions by individuals. We also see history around us in the buildings and monuments left behind by our ancestors, especially in a county like Northumberland which is full of visible history. These monuments are often associated with one historical figure, such as the Roman Emperor Hadrian and his wall, whereas in reality they are the product of countless individuals working together to create something which is enduring and has great impact. We don’t know much about the individuals who built Hadrian’s Wall but we do know that there would have been no wall without them.

The COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow could be one of the greatest moments in history. The headline announcements of agreements and changes to limit global warming will be made by presidents, prime ministers and chancellors, but it is the individuals who plan and deliver these who will ultimately make them succeed. In the case of what is decided at COP26, this means all of us if we are to make the changes necessary to give a sustainable future to our children and grandchildren.

My university degree was in Geography and I spent quite a bit of the course looking at long term changes in climate. I’ll admit that at first I wasn’t entirely convinced that the impact of human activity was as strong as suggested. After all, the Earth in the past has been both considerably colder and warmer than at present. However, as I’ve studied the recent scientific evidence in more detail, it’s clear that human activity is causing the earth to warm at a rate never seen before under natural changes.

With an issue such as climate change, we are all part of the problem. However, this also means that we can all be part of the solution. Change isn’t always straightforward and we’ve got to make it as easy as possible for people to live more sustainably, but without reducing the quality of their lives. It’s also much more difficult to make changes when people are struggling with the rapid rise in the cost of living, a big increase in National Insurance payments in the spring and cuts to universal credit.

Many of the changes will need action by Government and big business. For example, if they really want us to switch to driving electric cars then all new houses should already be built with charging points as standard. There should be funds to pay for schools and other public sector organisations to install charging points in car parks, without having to use their existing funding to do this.

There are also many things that we can do as individuals and groups to reduce our carbon footprint and live our lives more sustainably. These changes need to be agreed not imposed and we need to do a lot more explaining as to why they are necessary. Importantly many changes can be made without a significant impact on our lives. When we use electricity from wind turbines it works exactly in the same way as if it comes from an oil fired power station, although one system is clearly sustainable while the other adds to global warming.

Some of you may be wondering why the CEO of NCEAT would write a blog about COP21. The answer is that I want to take the opportunity of COP26 happening close to us to inspire our pupils to come up with ideas to make our schools more sustainable and to reduce the amount of carbon we produce. We already have solar panels, biomass boilers and energy efficient lighting systems, which is a good start, but we want to find more ways for us to be greener in the way we work.

To help create a local legacy for the positive impact of COP26 in reducing the impact of climate change, next week we will be launching some competitions for our pupils to get creative and suggest ways in which their school can reduce their impact on the environment.

Watch out for details in next week’s edition of Lighthouse, as this can be our pupils’ opportunity to create their own history through positive action!

Spending Review needs to bring investment in schools

21st October 2021Leanne Tonks

By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT

This week we’ve had the pleasure of hosting the BBC’s education editor, Branwen Jeffreys, to interview pupils, staff and parents/carers at Bishop’s and Duke’s Schools. The purpose of this was to get a view on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on schools ahead of the conclusion of the Government’s Spending Review next week. The Spending Review will set out what the Government priorities for spending will be over the next few years and how this will affect funding for education, health, etc.

There are some huge decisions here and these are complicated by the need to pay for the extra spending to deal with the pandemic and also the cost of moving to being carbon neutral by 2050. There is no doubt that the additional funding we’ve received so far for things such as catch-up tuition, laptops, summer school programmes and academic tutors has made a positive impact on our pupils, however what is also very clear is that the process of all pupils ‘catching up” is a long term one, which will require additional funding for a number of years.

When politicians make big decisions, the language around the decision and the justification for making that decision can be really important. For that reason, I think that we should stop talking about education spending and use the word “investment” instead. When governments make decisions when resources are limited, talk about reducing “spending” sounds attractive and easy to justify, but talk about cutting “investment” is much harder to justify, as clearly a lack of investment will create problems in the future.

There are few more important investments any nation can make than in its future through ensuring that its young people have the best possible education. The better educated a nation’s population is, the stronger the economy will be in years to come. Covid-19 has magnified long term problems linked to disadvantage and if we don’t invest in our education system, these problems will get worse rather than better. The problems are also unevenly spread over the country and there is a desperate need for extra investment to support the hard work that many schools in areas like the North East are putting into giving their pupils the best possible start in life.

So what do schools need from the spending review? Firstly we need certainty over funding. This should mean a return to the previous system of fully funding all future, well-deserved, cost of living pay increases for staff. At the moment we are in the ridiculous position of setting a three year budget in July each year before knowing whether there will be any cost of living pay increases for the autumn, let alone the two years following. This means that if there is a pay increase, we have to find the cost from making further savings from the existing budget. As around three quarters of the costs for schools are for staffing, this is a huge problem. Returning to the long-standing system which was in place under previous governments would help schools plan much more effectively and give certainty over budgeting.

The second wish would be for the additional funding we’ve received for Covid-19 catch-up, tuition, laptops, etc. to be continued for at least the three years covered by the spending review. We are very grateful for the additional money we’ve received so far and it is making a difference, but ‘catch-up’ isn’t going to happen over just one year. Since returning in September, we’ve had a huge amount of further disruption to learning caused by the massive increase in Covid-19 cases amongst pupils and staff, which is likely to continue throughout this school year.

Earlier in the month, I was one of over 100 school leaders to sign a letter from the Confederation of School Trusts calling on the Government to provide additional funding for schools of around £5 billion to help pupils catch up. This is a huge sum, but it is only around one-third of the £15 billion that the Government appointed school catch-up advisor, Sir Kevan Collins, said was needed for England’s school system. I hope for the sake of all of the children in our schools that our Government has the vision and courage to make this level of investment. If they do then I believe that they will get many times the value back from having a generation of young people who will reach their potential and not be held back by the impact of the pandemic increasing existing disadvantage.

2022 Exam proposals give certainty for pupils

30th September 2021Leanne Tonks

Today’s announcement that exam grades will be set mid-way between the 2019 exams and the 2021 teacher assessed grades is a positive one. It gives certainty to pupils taking exams this year, as they have suffered significantly from the ongoing disruption to education caused by Covid-19. It means that the percentage of passes and higher grades will be higher than in 2019, the last year when a ‘normal’ exam series took place. This will be a one year change and exam results for 2023 will return to the previous system of ‘comparable outcomes’, where the percentage of each grade varies very little from year to year.

In some of my previous blogs, I’ve talked about the need to change the way we assess pupils at 16 and 18 and I haven’t changed my opinion that the current system fails many pupils and needs radical change. However, the significant change needed here won’t happen overnight. We need to ensure that the pupils who are taking their exams next summer have the impacts of Covid-19 taken into consideration when their grades are awarded. This is particularly important for the most disadvantaged pupils, as the evidence collected nationally shows that for a number of reasons they have suffered disproportionately from disruption to their education.

It’s also very helpful to know that there is additional support for pupils who have missed big chunks of their education. This will be in the form of advanced notice of topics in some exams, so that revision can focus on topics pupils know they will be examined on. This is really important as it is impossible for pupils to have covered a whole subject syllabus in the same depth as they would have if all learning had taken place in schools as normal. The topics for exams will be published by 7th February 2022.

Pupils will also have more choice in which questions they can choose and will receive formulae sheets in Maths and Science. This poses the question as to why this doesn’t happen every year, as exams in these subjects should be testing the ability to apply concepts and complete calculations rather than remember a whole series of formulae. After all, a book of formulae is no help to someone who hasn’t mastered how to select and apply the correct formula to a question.

Finally, there are also are contingency plans in place for both further disruption where exams could still take place, and for the use of teacher assessed grades in the event of the 2022 exams being cancelled altogether. This is a very welcome change from the previous two years where government ministers insisted that exams would take place come what may and then had to cobble together a plan after cancelling exams without an alternative system of assessment in place.

It is refreshing to feel that lessons have been learned at the Department for Education and that they are again actually listening to those of us working in schools. This certainly wasn’t the case with the previous Secretary of State for Education but is an encouraging start for our new Minister.

Reshuffle gives opportunity for rebuilding relationships

16th September 2021Leanne Tonks

As I’ve said before, I don’t think that anyone in a role like mine should publically take a party political view. School leaders have to work with whoever the public elects, both nationally and locally. We need to keep relations positive to avoid creating more barriers which could impact on our ability to provide the education our children deserve.

The appointment of Nadhim Zahawi as Secretary of State for Education is, I think, the 16th person in that role since I began my teaching career. I don’t think that anyone would envy the decisions that his predecessor, Gavin Williamson, had to make during the pandemic. However, it was widely felt by those working in schools that often we just weren’t listened to when major decisions were made. There was a huge sense of frustration that many of the mistakes made with educational decisions could have been avoided if the Secretary of State had listened to the voice of the profession. The fiasco over the grade algorithm in 2020 is a good example, as almost all school leaders pointed out how this would lead to unfair results for individual students.

I’ve always regarded the Secretary of State as one of the most crucial roles in Government, after all we are talking about a role where decisions have a critical impact on the future of our children and therefore the future success, happiness and prosperity of our nation. In my opinion it is a role that should always be given to someone with the necessary experience and skills to be successful in the role. Knowledge can always be gained and above all else it should go to someone who cares deeply about children and really wants the role. Consistency and a long term approach would be very welcome but unfortunately many of Mr Zahawi’s predecessors have lasted for only a year. This is in contrast to other nations like Germany, where the equivalent role has had 6 ministers in the same time period that Britain has had 16.

I welcome Mr Zahawi to the role and I wish him every success. He has a long ‘to do list’ passed on to him by Mr Williamson and this contains some huge challenges. The biggest challenge will be securing enough funding to resource schools properly so that they can overcome the impact of the Covd-19 disruption on education and help all of our children reach their potential.

The other huge challenge is to set a clear direction for the education sector and show some decisive leadership. For a number of years, there has been an absence of a strategic view, which has been replaced by short term thinking. Significant decisions often seem to be made only when a crisis point has been reached. A clearer rationale and strategy for education will be welcomed by many. If the Government is really serious about ‘levelling up’ then investment in education, particularly in areas of high deprivation, needs to be a key part of this.

Mr Zahawi has been widely praised for his work in helping roll out the Covid-19 vaccination programme in his previous role as Vaccines Minister. Let’s hope that at the end of his time as Secretary of State for Education that he will be worthy of similar praise for his positive impact on education and improving the life chances of our children.

New NCEAT schools to be at the heart of their local communities

9th September 2021Leanne Tonks

Starting a new school year is always eagerly anticipated by staff, pupils and their families. This year however, it was even more exciting than usual for Northumberland Church of England Academy Trust as we have officially opened four new primary schools!

At the end of August, we received the final permission needed from the Department of Education (DfE) to split the former Bishop’s Primary School into five separate primary schools. We did this to ensure that each school is firmly at the heart of its local community, while retaining all of the benefits of working together as part of our Trust.

The former Josephine Butler campus will keep the Bishop’s name and school number, but we now welcome Grace Darling C of E Primary, James Knott C of E Primary, Thomas Bewick C of E Primary and William Leech C of E Primary into the Trust as new schools in their own right.

Our staff have completed a huge amount of work to enable this to happen, including creating new websites and setting up new IT and administration systems. Each new school also received a pre-opening OFSTED inspection during the summer holiday. All have received very positive reports and we will share these with you when we are allowed to publish them.

As we made clear during the consultation period, there will be no changes to the school uniforms during the 2021-22 school year. Each of the new schools will consult parents and carers later in the school year about whether there should be any changes in the future.

This does not necessarily mean that there will be any changes to uniform and our Trust commitment is if there are any future changes, these will be phased in over a period of time and not imposed suddenly. We are also committed to making uniform as affordable as possible and restricting the requirement for branded items to the absolute minimum. The Department for Education are bringing out new guidelines for school uniform later in the autumn term and we will review this before starting uniform consultations.

There will be exciting opportunities for our pupils to design new school badges and we will shortly be announcing details of the competitions for this. We very much hope that this will be a chance for each school to further strengthen its identity within its own local community.

I hope that our pupils, parents and carers will not notice any significant changes to how each school operates on a day to day basis. However, creating the new schools will make it easier to apply for places in a particular school and over time will give each school more funding to spend on providing the best possible education for our pupils.

For our staff, who are used to collaborating, sharing ideas, resources and training, this will continue as usual, as it is a huge part of the success of our schools. All that will change is that this will be done through the Trust rather than through a single school. Although each school now has its own Headteacher, Mrs Hinson will act as Executive Headteacher to support the new Headteachers and provide continuity of leadership.

These are exciting changes which we believe will help us provide an even better education for our pupils.

Making the most of our summer

16th July 2021Leanne Tonks

Date: 16/07/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

I wonder how many of us as adults look back nostalgically at summer holidays that seemed to stretch endlessly. My memories are mainly of ‘playing out’ and often being dragged back home to eat dinner. No mobile phones meant we could push the boundaries of staying out until we were ‘hunted down’ by one of our parents.

Summer days for us meant playing football in the park, with games going on for hours with teams constantly changing as friends arrived or were called home. It meant riding on bikes to the beach or inland to climb what we thought were mountains to freewheel down. It meant us all chipping in what cash we had or making some from doing jobs for relatives and neighbours, so that we could share ice cream or chips.

Above all else, it meant spending time with friends, and learning. Not learning in the sense of the school curriculum, although we did learn things like the practical maths required to know how many bags of chips we could afford from our shared cash and how to divide this fairly amongst eight people! What we learned were things like what friendship really was, how to solve arguments amicably and how to grow more independent – doing things without our parents. By spending lots of time outdoors we also learned a lot about nature, even if sometimes this was about which plants to avoid if your football went into the bushes!

For me, those days were long ago and the world is very different now, but I believe that the summer holiday is the time to give our children some of the opportunities that I’ve mentioned above. At the risk of repeating what I’ve said a number of times before, I think that more than ever our children need opportunities to spend time with their friends and families outdoors, playing games, learning about the world in an informal way and reconnecting with nature. The best thing we can do as parents or carers this summer is give our children these opportunities but the challenge, particularly with current circumstances, is do this in the safest possible way.

It’s been another incredibly difficult year but the lights of our communities have shone through in the way that everyone has worked together to support our children. I hope that all our pupils, staff, parents, carers and families have a wonderful summer, where the sun shines and we have the chance to build some happy memories to last a lifetime. I’ll sign off with a final thought in the form of a short poem and I look forward to seeing everyone return safe and well in September.

Summer Holidays by Paul Warren:

The sky goes on forever
In azure blue as I remember
Riding on with a cool breeze
Long hot days doing what you please

White sands that shone
Running free all care gone
Crystal clear sparkling water cooling touch
Summer holidays as I remember much.

Why Britishvolt’s gigafactory is fantastic news for our pupils

8th July 2021Leanne Tonks

Date: 08/07/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

On Tuesday, Northumberland County Council granted planning permission for Britishvolt to build a huge electric car battery ‘gigafactory’ at Cambois by 2023. When fully operational, this will produce 300,000 electric car batteries each year, employing around 3,000 people directly with an expected 5,000 further jobs with suppliers. The factory will be one of the 20 largest buildings in the UK and represents a £2.6 billion investment, which is the largest single investment in the North East since the opening of the Nissan factory in Sunderland.

Ok, so far this blog has sounded like a news report and you will probably be wondering why a school leader is writing about a new factory… The simple reason is that Britishvolt will create incredible opportunities for the pupils in our schools and will mean a more hopeful and prosperous future for Northumberland. I believe this to be true for two reasons.

Firstly, there will be well-paid, skilled jobs on offer at the plant, which hopefully will be here for the very long term. This offers some amazing career opportunities for our pupils to access, but only if they have the right qualifications and above all, the right attitude to fit into the culture of the employer. As a Trust, we are very fortunate to have strong links with many local employers, such as AkzoNobel, who have the world’s most advanced paint factory based right here in Ashington.

It’s very clear from our work with employers that being able to fit into their culture is absolutely vital to a successful career. Many organisations now make assessing cultural fit a key part of their recruitment process and probationary period when joining. One of NCEAT’s key objectives is to help our pupils to develop skills such as teamwork, problem solving and good communications, because we recognise that these are in high demand from employers and we want our pupils to have the best opportunities. Alongside this, we work to educate our pupils on the range of careers available and the qualifications needed for success.

There is no doubt that Britishvolt will bring many high quality career opportunities, but many of these will also require particular qualifications as well as skills, so we need to ensure that our pupils and parents are aware of the importance of post-16 qualifications in Maths and Science in particular.

The second reason to welcome Britishvolt’s investment is because it represents a low carbon, sustainable future for our region.

We can all be proud of our heritage, and coal mining was a key part of that. Over a hundred years ago, the North East was a world leader in developing the technology to mine and use coal in a range of industries. Today, between Britishvolt, the new electric car investments at Nissan and the development of renewable energy industries along our coastline, we have the chance to become the world’s powerhouse for green, low carbon technologies to help combat global warming.

While coal mining brought employment and prosperity, it also helped to contribute to the problem of global warming. It is ironic then that Britishvolt, with a product which will help tackle climate change, will be constructing their factory on the site of a former coal fired power station.

Britishvolt is a really good news story for Northumberland. We had already started to develop links with them prior to planning permission being granted, and it is fantastic that their plans will now become a reality. The challenge for our Trust schools is ensuring that our pupils are able to take advantage of the opportunities that Britishvolt will offer, but I’m confident that we will rise to this challenge.

Bishop’s changes get green light from Department for Education

24th June 2021Leanne Tonks

Date: 24/06/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

We have received notification from the Department for Education that we have been granted permission to split Bishop’s into 5 separate schools. We are awaiting full details but the intention is to make this change from September. 

Each school will now have a Headteacher rather than Head of Campus but I am delighted that Mrs Hinson will act as Executive Headteacher, so that each school is supported as they establish themselves as new schools.

The change was granted on the back of the support received during the consultation period and we are incredibly grateful to staff, parents, carers and the wider community for their support. 

We proposed to make the change to the way that Bishop’s is run to bring each school closer to the heart of its local community, simplify the admissions system and to secure additional funding for the benefit of the pupils. We believe that this will allow us to build on the success achieved by Bishop’s as a single school, while retaining all of the positives we enjoy from working together across the Trust. 

In many respects, more things will stay the same than will change. All staff will still be employed by the Trust and we will continue to collaborate across each of the schools in areas such as school improvement, specialist teachers and training. We also made it clear in our consultation that there will be no changes to the current uniform during 2021-22 and that any future changes would be phased in only after full consultation with parents and carers, including a review of affordability. 

We will be writing to all parents and carers with full details as we have them but we wanted to share the good news as soon as possible.