Summit 2015: Quick Round-up
This year’s Summit took place at St James’ Park in Newcastle and was the biggest one yet, attracting over 450 delegates from all four corners of the North East and nationally renowned speakers.
The regional event with the benefits of a national conference has become a must-attend education event in the calendar of North East school leaders. This year the Summit received a great deal of press coverage, national as well as local. Here’s a flavour of the atmosphere on the day:
With SCHOOLS NorthEast undergoing great changes in the past year, the 2015 Summit saw the newly-appointed Chair John Hardy pay tribute to outgoing Chair David Pearmain , as well as Director Mike Parker thanking former Director Beccy Earnshaw who attended the event as a delegate this time around.
The Summit looked at a Vision for 2020 in all aspects of education, primarily how to tackle mental health issues in schools. The commitment of SCHOOLS NorthEast to help our region’s school deal with this growing concern was made clear by the official announcement of a North East Commission into the mental health of pupils, made by Director Mike Parker.
The most prominent keynote speakers of the day was Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw who gave a speech on school improvement, leadership and autonomy.
Mental Health was the most discussed theme throughout the day, not only during the launch of the North East Commission, but also in a breakout session dedicated to developing a positive approach to mental health.
‘What will it take to develop great teaching?’ was also one of the core questions and Prof Robert Coe, Director of the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) and Professor in the School of Education, Durham University looked at the answers.
Both breakout sessions took place in the Moncur Suite which was sponsored by our Commercial Supporters Capita Education Recruitment.
Other sessions loooked at what it will take to get parental engagement right and establish strong relationships between schools and employers.
Vision 2020 was concluded by Ian Bauckham, Past President of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) who presented a ‘Blueprint for a self-improving system: challenges and opportunities’, followed by a panel discussion with various North East head teachers, chaired by SCHOOLS NorthEast Chairman Joe Hardy.
The event hosted an exhibition of over 60 stands and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all our exhibitors for their support – we hope you made the most out of the day!
A big thank you also goes to Muckle LLP, the Main Sponsor at the Summit, as well as their Head of Education Tony McPhillips who gave an introductory speech at the conference.
The day was packed with exciting and innovative ideas of improvement, as well as advise, insight and expertise. And if that wasn’t enough, three prize pots filled with gifts were won at the end of the day. Keep scrolling through this week’s newsletter – all dedicated to the Summit – to find out who were the lucky winners.