Batley Girls' High School was delighted to host the PiXL Open Day event last week and share best practice with schools across our region. The event was coordinated by the fantastic Mrs Wilby, Batley Girls' Assistant Headteacher, and it was an opportunity for senior and middle leaders from Batley Girls' to showcase their exceptional work on school improvement to other school leaders. Batley Girls' school leaders presented their work on personal development, inclusion, careers and how they develop distributed leadership across their staff team, as well as how they develop and maximise learner leadership opportunities. Mr Scurr presented the bespoke and uniquely designed Batley Brilliance Bucket and how that is used to secure strong attendance, inspire learners to be the best version of themselves every day, and to play a positive and proactive role in school life, and their wider community.   Careers is a golden thread of the entire Batley Girls' curriculum and Mrs Mehat leads this area of school life exceptionally well. Batley Girls' High School was also graded as outstanding by Ofsted for its Personal Development curriculum.    Feedback from the open day was incredibly positive about how the school builds a culture where the curriculum and wider learner well-being drives high academic achievement and how this is empowered by the distributed leadership model. One learner summed the day up the best when they said; "Learner leadership isn't symbolic - it is a meaningful part of how our school operates."   Batley Girls' High School also received a letter from Bridget Phillipson, the Secretary of State for Education last week praising them for their excellent results with learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. Batley Girls' has been recognised as achieving superb outcomes for these learners. This high achievement places Batley Girls' High School amongst the very best nationally. Really well done to Mr Kibble and the Batley Girls' High School team. 

This week we are congratulating Purlwell Infant and Nursery School for their fantastic attendance. Everyone in the Purlwell community has worked very hard to secure strong attendance over many months. As a result, Purlwell are the winning Trust School. Congratulations to all learners, staff and parents/carers for great teamwork in ensuring every learner has excellent attendance. Purlwell is also within the top 5 of all similar schools in the Department for Education analysis. Really well done Team Purlwell! It is great to see the silver trophies on display in your school.    Mrs Nazam, Purlwell's excellent Headteacher always has attendance as a high priority. School displays are excellent, all communication with children and parents/carers is about attendance and there are lots of rewards and incentives when children attend well. The Friday celebration assemblies are eagerly awaited by everyone!    Research also proves children make the most progress when they attend well, Every Day Matters. Every absence is a lost learning day, and every lesson counts, even our youngest children need to attend nursery and school every day if they are to reach their potential. This is when children learn the fundamental basics in maths and English, alongside social skills and physical development, and this underpins their learning for the rest of their lives.