SLN 2nd Annual Network Day
Network Day 2010
SLN held its second annual Network Day on 6th/7th July 2010 at
the Midland Hotel in Bradford, attended by 60 delegates
representing 25 local authorities plus several partner
organisations.
Overall, the event was focussed on developing
a clear vision and strategy for the coming year, to provide a
strong network of support to schools across England, to deepen
knowledge and confidence in issues of identity, diversity,
community and equality.
The main day of the event was very full,
providing professional development for people leading on
school linking, working at both a philosophical and practical
level. Please see programme attached. There was time to
reflect on how we will work together as a network over the coming
year to ensure that children and young people have the
opportunities to learn crucial skills and knowledge implicit in
work on community cohesion, sustainability and global learning and
the clear ways in which this work supports aspiration communication
and standards of achievement. It is clear that this work is
necessary whether or not some agendas remain as discrete education
agendas.
Angie Kotler, CEO of SLN, opened the day,
sharing a vision for the future, where SLN will continue to support
schools and local authority colleagues to ensure that children and
young people acquire essential life skills of communication,
emotional resilience and critical thinking, through rich
experiential learning (both within and outside the classroom) and
excellent reflective practice.
A panel of speakers followed with their
particular perspectives:
Sir Keith Ajegbo talked of the need to
continue to develop the work that has grown steadily over the past
3 years because there is now a widespread understanding of the need
for these skills where there wasn’t before and now there is a
momentum to the work across the country which is bearing fruit.
Alveena Malik from the Institute of Community
Cohesion (iCoCo) praised SLN for being a high impact initiative at
the forefront of the agenda promoting interaction and reiterated
the support for SLN from iCoCo. She also mentioned the super
diverse, rapidly increasing British population with a high aging
population and a young ethnic minority population and highlighted
that community cohesion was more important now than in any other
decade as we still have persistent inequality in this country. She
believes that if this new generation doesn’t have the necessary
life skills and can work in a diverse workforce they are not going
to be successful and then this country is not going to be
successful. She raised the question, what does this mean for
schools in the newly emerging policy agenda? Schools will
increasingly be given control of their budgets and curriculum and
really hopes to see schools understanding the importance of the
community cohesion agenda. She ended by stating that if the
community cohesion duty remains or not schools will still realise
the importance of equipping their children with life skills
Clare Daybell, the strategic manager of the
school linking work in Hull, described how well embedded the school
linking strategy - local, national and global - is within a
broader LA policy for cohesion and for young people. Good relations
with the police support this work and all the Hull schools have
responded eagerly to the opportunity to develop key life skills
through genuine experiences and to broaden horizons for young
people in Hull.
Rabbi Daniel Kerbel, the Headteacher of
North-west London Jewish Day School, spoke passionately of how
linking his schools with Christian and Muslim schools has proved to
be the most powerful learning experience for his staff and pupils
as well as parents. He inspired the delegates with his commitment
and enthusiasm for this work which is breaking barriers and
challenging misconceptions of ‘otherness’ while maintaining a
strong sense of religious identity within each school.
Information about the rest of the day’s
sessions can be found through the indepth programme for the day,
please click here
The event had started with dinner on 6th July
followed by a rousing talk about the strength of a whole school
community in raising achievement, by Headteacher Brenda
Bigland.
Brenda talked of how her school has extremely
high aspirations for all, and particularly how it engages
meaningfully with parents and local businesses in order to ensure
that everyone works together for the good of the children. From
this solid base the school also has links with many other schools
and children feel confident in who they are and how they relate to
others.
We will be reflecting and planning over the
next few weeks, incorporating valuable thoughts from many of our
colleagues. Whether or not you were able to attend the event, if
you have more thoughts to share with us, we are always happy to
hear from you.
We wish all our colleagues and partners a
peaceful and restful summer break and look forward to seeing you
again soon.
Angie Kotler
CEO of SLN