At last, we received some good news this week, you may have seen that Bavaanni Nanthabalan (Exec head at Netley Primary School and Centre for Autism) has been awarded a Silver Award in the Pearson Teaching awards and will now go forward to the final! It is with absolute pleasure that I share this news and there is no one more deserving of this honour than Bavaani, and I was not at all surprised that the nomination came from within the heart of her school community, where Bavaani is deeply rooted. Bavaani knows her community; she understands and cares for them but in equal measure has high aspiration and expectations for all. Making a difference to the lives and experiences of every child and adult within the Netley community is truly important to Bavaani. When visiting the school you very soon become absorbed into what Netley has become, a truly inspiring place of learning and friendship. I defy anyone to leave without feeling humble and without a warm feeling and a spring in their step. Meeting Bavaani for the first time 3 years ago, it did not take long to realise that I was talking with someone unique. Someone who had a special understanding of children, their learning and the importance of having aspirations. Someone who exudes pride and joy when seeing the children and her staff learning and achieving and who exhibits a sense of calmness and authority instilling confidence in others; staff, parents and children. Well done Bavaani and we wish you well in the final.

The past academic year’s hub programme was inevitably affected by COVID-19, where Hubs continued to complete as much of the programme as they possibly could, even resulting in remote meetings to get to a sense of completion, and we were able to celebrate and share the learning that had taken place at the Pecha Kucha event in July, despite all the disruption. Although the planning for the learning hub programme for 2020/21 was inevitably delayed, despite many challenges, schools overwhelmingly came forward with their ideas and suggestions for hubs and we are delighted that the appetite for hub collaboration has not diminished. We have once again a programme where hubs connect classroom teachers and support them in working together to accelerate improvement and impact.

We are planning to send out the brochure next week for your consideration; this year we are delighted to offer a total of 8 Hubs for schools to consider joining and collaborating with; as ever a blend of new Hubs and a continuation of others. The continuation of the successful Primary Maths Hub recognising the significant losses post COVID in terms of conceptual understanding and fluency; SEND with a focus on Autism, led in conjunction with the Autism Education Trust (AET), and Early Years with a particular focus on nursery year to reception year, considering practice and tracking of children into Reception who would have missed ‘that big chunk’ of Nursery. The STEAM Hub will be consolidating the successes of the first two years, while the Mental Health Hub will continue for a fourth year to share and develop knowledge and understanding of mental health issues in schools.

Going into a second year is the Coding Hub which aims to provide a hands-on training session to develop any Coding concepts and skills required by practitioners and the opportunity to observe lessons taught to pupils showing the Coding concepts in action in a real classroom environment. We have two new hubs for 2020/21 with a Distance Learning Hub, with the focus on the processes of developing distance learning including pre-recorded lessons and online lessons, the other is the Anti-Racism Hub, which is set up to support schools to make strategic, long term changes to ensure that anti-racism is embedded into every area of their school, with a focus on curriculum, conduct, outcomes and culture. We are pleased to announce that The Black Curriculum organisation will be working with Camden Learning and the hub over the next 12 months. During the series of standards meetings that have now begun, it would be useful to explore with leaders, which hubs capture their interest and match their own school priorities.

Jon Abbey

Managing Director of Camden Learning