Leeds is a successful, dynamic, multi-cultural city and aspires to and deserves to have a world class education system. Education Leeds is the champion for learning in the City and is building on the achievements of the last five years. We have already transformed outcomes and made real progress in attendance and behaviour standards. Strong and dynamic relationships exist between Education Leeds, the City Council, Schools and other partners. However despite our success we still face a situation where about half of our young people are achieving less than 5 GCSE grades at A to C. There is an increasing recognition that secondary schools as we know them will not deliver for all our young people and we need radical learning transformation in order to achieve transformational outcomes.

Through BSF we aim to transform the secondary school estate to respond to the evolving needs of modern education and new working methodologies. This will be reflected in, not only how the school building themselves are built but also how teachers and other staff will manage and use the buildings and how children and young people will interact within and use those spaces.

Our route to educational transformation will be through:

• Focusing on learning not teaching, emphasising individual learning and core competencies with learning experiences that are learner centred
  
  
• Ensuring that each learner has a personal learning plan, a personal adviser and a personal mentor
  
  
• Enabling teachers to become coaches, consultants and learning leaders
  
  
• Effectively targeting support to identified need, enabled through early identification and tailored support
  
  
• Focusing on the powerful and imaginative use of ICT to transform learning, engagement and outcomes
  
  
• Developing new ways of consulting and engaging children and young people on active participants in learning
  
  
• Developing new ways of engaging parents and carers and communities to promote local schools for local children and young people
  
  
• Building learning networks within and across schools and communities
  
  
• Using trusts, federations and partnerships to develop new models of local leadership, management and governance to undermine the workforce
  
  
• Making on institutions more flexible, open learning centres that support full extended learning and opportunities
  
  
• With schools at the heart of their communities, developing integrated multi-agency partnerships that link together all agencies that work with learners and their families
  
  
• Developing intelligent accountability by building new systems of assessment evaluation and review, making effective use of data to encourage continuous innovation and improvement; and
  
  
• Establish a future framework where ideas and issues are reviewed, considered and tried.
  
  

Our vision for children and young people is a new part of the wider Vision for Leeds II, the community strategy for the city. We will work to deliver the key themes of the Vision for Leeds II for children and young people:

• Going up a league: we will make Leeds the best place in the country for children, young people and their families to live, learn, work and play, with a high quality of life for everyone. We will ensure all children and young people have the skills and knowledge to help them and the city thrive in the 21st century global economy;
  
  
• Narrowing the gap: we will work together with children, young people and their families and communities to ensure they all have the skills, confidence and opportunities to thrive and achieve their potential, regardless of their circumstances and the barriers they face;
  
  
• Developing Leeds as a regional capital: we will make Leeds children’s services regional leaders, promoting best practice and building learning networks with other local areas.
  
  

Our vision for children’s services

To achieve our vision we will transform the way we organise our services. Our vision for children’s services in Leeds is that they become more:

• Personalised: we will tailor support and services around the needs of each individual, working with them to agree a package of support that works best for their situation;
  
  
• Family and community focused: we will support children and young people by working with their families and carers and with their communities;
  
  
• Preventative: we will identify issues early and intervene as soon as possible to prevent problems emerging;
  
  
• Integrated: we will ensure services are seamless, organised around children and young people rather than agencies. We will deliver services through multi-agency teams working together in schools and children’s centres at the heart of communities;
  
  
• Devolved: we will devolve services and support as far as possible to allow local communities to develop services that work for them, and to allow front line staff to take the initiative;
  
  
• Targeted: we will use information and evidence to intervene where need is greatest and where we can make the most difference.
  
  

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