CEO Blog

• Celebrating Success

  Mon 24 Jul 2023

  It is hard to believe that the academic year has come to an end. We have had so many wonderful things to celebrate this year across our Trust family of schools. Our schools have won another award last week with Manorfield achieving their Eco School Green Flag Award for the second year running - a huge well done to the whole team and all their young people! 

   

  Upper Batley showcased a fantastic innovative careers project working with local business HSL, to design and manufacture a chair allowing our young people to develop a project from concept to construction. This creative careers collaboration has involved months of meticulous work by UBHS learners, and the Queen's Award winning colleagues at HSL. The quality of the chairs produced is absolutely exquisite! The project was supported by our local MP, Kim Leadbeater, and has been celebrated across our whole community.

   

  Upper Batley also saw a learner in Year 10 presented with an award from West Yorkshire Police for his fantastic work on Pol-Ed. This young person spoke at a national conference held at Headingley Stadium in front of an audience of 500 school leaders, Department for Education officials and Ofsted inspectors. He was amazing, and we are all very proud of him.

   

  All six of our schools are now planning a careers conference for our whole community which will be held at Batley Town Hall in February 2024. We hope to see you there.

   

  We wish everyone in our community a happy, healthy and safe summer, and we thank you all for your ongoing support for our Trust family of schools this year. We look forward to seeing you all in September for another exciting year of education in Batley. 

  

• Batley Breakfast

  Mon 17 Jul 2023

  ​The Batley Breakfast was held last week at Healey School, and there was a fantastic turnout of Members, Trustees, Governors and school leaders. The inspirational Headteacher, Mrs Lang, outlined the school's vision and ethos, and how this aligns to the Trust's vision for our family of schools. Healey School has been transformed under Mrs Lang's leadership and goes from strength-to-strength each and every year.

   

  The Batley Buzz was evident in every Healey corridor and classroom throughout the tour with lots of purposeful learning activities taking place. The young people were happy, enjoying their education and we saw first hand some wonderful careers activities that began in Early Years. The learning environment is also being developed with a lovely, modern new library and reading area. 

   

  Aspirations are high for all of the young people at Healey School, and there is a brilliant staff team to help all young people achieve their goals and be the best version of themselves every day. 

  

• Homemade Honey

  Mon 10 Jul 2023

  This week the Batley Buzz really has been evident, in a literal sense, with the release of our first batch of honey for 2023. The Batley Bees have been hard at work in their hive, and our beekeepers have now been able to collect the honey and decant it into jars ready for distribution. Our brilliant Batley artists have designed the unique, bespoke 2023 label and the jars look very professional. We can't wait to taste the delicious honey! 

   

  We are incredibly fortunate across our family of schools to have such a wide range of curriculum enrichment activities available for our young people to get involved with to develop new skills, hobbies and interests. It is important young people learn where their food comes from and many of our schools now grow many of their own fruits, vegetables, herbs, and honey production too, of course.

   

  From bees to badminton, cricket to croquet, art club to archery, poetry to painting, flying lessons in cadets to designing and building your own rocket - there really is something for everyone here in Batley.

  

• Our learners visit the House of Lords

  Mon 03 Jul 2023

  We have had such an exciting few weeks with all our community events taking place for the Great Get Together weekend, and then a group of our budding environmentalists were shortlisted for the national Young Green Briton Challenge final. These innovative young people were invited to present their ideas to a panel of climate ambassadors, including Chris Packham, at the House of Lords. Their concept, the Eco Shark; is an innovative idea to clean up litter, in particular plastic, from our waterways. They researched the local area and the impact it could have on both the people who visit and the animals who live in or frequent the small lake in Wilton Park, and presented three phases for the product development; for ponds, lakes and the sea. We are incredibly proud of these young people, both in terms of their creative ideas, and also of their achievement to reach these national finals and present their concept to such a high profile audience.

   

  This year has been a busy one in Batley with all our schools developing their environmental sustainability projects, and many achieving their Eco-Schools Green Flag accreditation! Well done to everyone for your hard work on this important area of school life. We can be the change we want to see in the world!