This morning we held our first School Business Manager forum as a cluster. It was generally agreed that this area has grown considerably over the last few years and the School Business Manager finds his/herself taking on many roles and tackling new issues (eg GDPR). There was lots of discussion and sharing of practice and providers who are providing good services. Moving forward we plan to share providers and some idea of their costs across schools so we can review them together and see if there are savings to be made through a collective approach. We also discussed sharing effective templates that have been approved by auditors. School Business Managers want to maximise opportunities for increasing income in a number of areas, including letting our premises – ideas included hiring out for children’s parties and as a film location. We look forward to meeting again as a group at the end of this month. 
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EYFS forum meeting 1st October
Our schools were well represented at the first EYFS forum of the year, hosted by Loughborough Primary School. We all enjoyed a tour of the Nursery at Loughborough and enjoyed seeing their library area where parents and children can borrow books and use the library card system. As this was our first meeting, it was a chance for teachers to talk about their topics for the term and their plans for their children. It was interesting to hear about a new topic idea from one school, to encompass some of the winter festivals – Things that Sparkle and Shine. Some schools were using some of the children’s favourite books to start the year. We discussed different software packages available to monitor the progress of children and set some topics for the year including exploring STEM activities, looking at how to encourage junk modelling, Music and ICT.
Teachers Welcome event at South Bank Centre
Yesterday our steering group of Senior leaders from across the cluster held their termly meeting at the Royal Festival Hall, followed by a welcome event presented by the South Bank Centre team. The Centre has a range of workshops, projects and partnerships available to schools this academic year and BLC are keen to make the most of all these opportunities in Music, Literature and Art. We were then able to access the brand new Hayward Gallery exhibition Shape Shifters – a wonderful experimental show of shapes and objects of differing materials that bring new dimensions to viewing and experimenting with space. Well worth a visit! Many thanks to the South Bank Centre team and we look forward to working with you this year.
Confident Creators teacher training
This week our teacher training sessions with our artists got well underway for our Paul Hamlyn funded project Confident Creators. All the teachers were led through a Music, Art and Drama activity where they composed their own graphic score to a story they set to music and performed to each other. This was a great way to get the creative juices flowing! Graphic scores help children work together and problem solve to find ways they can represent meaning, as well as an excellent way for EAL children to sequence stories. The rest of the day saw teachers split into groups each working with one of our fabulous arts practitioners, experiencing a range of activities to explore the art form, learn new techniques and experiment with ideas. This Monday we will continue the work together leading towards trialling ideas in the classroom.
Our Confident Creators project begins!
After much planning and discussion we have now started our Confident Creators project journey. On Monday our artistic team spent their day working together to prepare delivery of the programme this term. Drama practitioner Simon Bachelor, artist Liz Atkin and musician Deborah Aloba bring a wealth of creative experience that they will share with our teachers over the next 2 years. The Confident Creators project is about developing growth mindset through the arts, embedding the arts within the curriculum. During our planning session we explored our own personal and professional journeys towards developing a growth mindset. At the end of the day it was great to get all the teachers together who will be working on the project this year – 20 teachers and 10 senior leaders. During this twilight session the teachers shared their own growth mindset practice in the classroom and we sampled some short arts activities together, with opportunities to feedback our reactions to them. Many thanks to everyone who took part and to our funder Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
wishing everyone in our schools’ community a good summer break
As we come to the end of term, we wish everyone in our schools’ community a restful and restorative summer break. It has been a very busy year with lots of events and opportunities for schools to work together. We look forward to many more from September.
plenty of activities for families to enjoy over the summer
There are lots of free or low cost activities for families to enjoy over the summer break. Enjoy!
girls football tournament
To whet the appetite for last night’s England match, 5 teams of girls from our area got together to play an action packed tournament hosted by Archbishop Sumner Primary. BLC teams welcomed a team from our neighbouring cluster, Vauxhall Primary for 3 hours of matches. The standard was consistently high during all 12 matches, despite the high temperatures. The final between Archbishop Sumner and Vauxhall went to a nail-biting penalty shoot-out, with Vauxhall getting the decisive goal. Congratulations to every player yesterday – it was a real pleasure to watch. A particular well done to Zamyrah from Christ Church Primary SW9, Player of the Tournament, for outstanding play in goal and of course to the winners from Vauxhall. A big thank you to all the staff at Archbishop Sumner Primary for hosting and to their staff member Katy Fitzpatrick for her brilliant organisation. Looking forward to more play next academic year when we hope to hold training days and start a league.
Low Cost No Cost activities for families this weekend
Dance on a World Cup theme!
Four partnership schools from the Brixton Learning Collaborative (BLC) came together on Thursday 21st June 2018, to take part in the able and talented dance workshop. The aim was to put together a collaborative dance routine, culminating in live performance to a 250 strong audience. Professional dance instructor , Mr Ricky Blackett led the session.
The theme centred around the football World Cup in Russia The aim was to create a dance routine that was reflective of the sport and the customs and traditions of the host country. Each school had eight participants. The workshop provided an opportunity to showcase individual talent and dance skills as well as develop team work and collaborative working. The students were the creators of the routine. Adult were facilitators, helping to bring all individual routines together as one. The performers had the additional challenge of working to tight time frame.-less than two hours in which to devise , practice and perform.
In the end, the dance routine was a great success. The audience was able capture the passion and excitement that would be felt during a real live football match. It was interactive in that the audience performed the role of the football supporters within the stadium and the dancers acted out the story of the football match.
The dancers were asked to evaluate the day. Here are some of their recollections:
Four partnership schools from the Brixton Learning Collaborative (BLC) came together on Thursday 21st June 2018, to take part in the able and talented dance workshop. The aim was to put together a collaborative dance routine, culminating in live performance to a 250 strong audience. Professional dance instructor , Mr Ricky Blackett led the session.
The theme centred around the football World Cup in Russia The aim was to create a dance routine that was reflective of the sport and the customs and traditions of the host country. Each school had eight participants. The workshop provided an opportunity to showcase individual talent and dance skills as well as develop team work and collaborative working. The students were the creators of the routine. Adult were facilitators, helping to bring all individual routines together as one. The performers had the additional challenge of working to tight time frame.-less than two hours in which to devise , practice and perform.
In the end, the dance routine was a great success. The audience was able capture the passion and excitement that would be felt during a real live football match. It was interactive in that the audience performed the role of the football supporters within the stadium and the dancers acted out the story of the football match.
The dancers were asked to evaluate the day. Here are some of their recollections:
I really enjoyed working with children from other schools.
We were able to learn from each other.
It was so much fun. I wish we could come back next week
The whole day was really exciting! I was able to demonstrate lots of different dance moves.
Thank you St John’s for hosting a great event.
The Brixton Learning Collaborative 