I know that we all want Education Leeds and schools across the city to be the ‘Best Places to Work’ locally, regionally and nationally...

Being a brilliant learning place takes a deep-rooted commitment focused on leadership, performance management and resource management. We must all work hard to help our colleagues be the best they can be, doing the best we can in every area of our work and supporting each other to be our brilliant best. Research has shown that looking after our health and well-being affects the experience for young people and their parents and carers improves recruitment and retention, drives up standards and drives down poor attendance. There is no question about it secure, happy, engaged colleagues are the key to success.

We need to focus on improving the things that really make that difference. Leadership is the key to this and we need to understand how colleagues feel about us as leaders and managers and how they view our values and principles. We need to coach colleagues and nurture their well-being to help them manage the pressure, the stress and maintain their life-work balance. Increasingly we are looking for colleagues to be more flexible and develop generic skills and we need to put in place training and development programmes to release colleagues potential and their magic. We also need to continue to think team, build team and create teams where colleagues work together on the challenges and the wicked issues.

We must continue to be proud to be part of the learning team here in Leeds. We have made such a difference together and colleagues in so many ways have made a fantastic contribution. We are building something simply amazing which is helping young people to achieve better and better outcomes.
Chris