International Women's Day is this week, and it was so difficult to choose one focus to write about in my blog this week as so many fantastic learning activities have been taking place across our Trust family of schools.

I would therefore like to begin by thanking all of the truly inspirational women who work in our schools; from our inspirational Headteachers, our amazing associate staff, teachers, cleaners, lunchtime supervisors, to the women who tackle gender stereotypes for example in caretaking roles; as well as the fantastic young people themselves and their mums, grandmothers, aunties and sisters in the community.

We thank all these brilliant women for the amazing work they do in our schools, and our community, not just on International Women's Day, but every day! We also thank the brilliant men, young and older, who work with them and support them. 

World Book Day saw our family of schools transformed into even more inspirational learning environments, with reading for pleasure being celebrated as a key way to relax and look after your wellbeing. Famous authors and poets came to Batley library (as featured on BBC TV), a 'Starbooks' coffee shop opened at Batley Girls' High School (masterminded by the truly superb Mrs Sawyer), where young people baked the most amazing cakes (watch out Mary Berry!), and there were literary themed competitions with brilliant book prizes, and Upper Batley High School had a yellow brick road in the Bistro as it was transformed into The Wizard of Oz.

As if all of that wasn't enough, one of our teachers Mrs Dent, is currently in India training teachers and senior leaders about effective teaching and learning, and sharing best practice about the great work we do here in Batley. How amazing is it that we have an international dimension to our work and approach to the sharing of knowledge.

Batley really is all about brilliant education for all our young people, because our children deserve the best.