Dear colleagues,
A short greeting before I get into the week, which has been a busy one and, in places, a genuinely thought-provoking one.
The headline for me was the ED360 AI in Education Conference, which WeST hosted in partnership with Dell, Intel and Microsoft at Ivybridge Community College. We said yes to this for a simple reason. On Thursday a large portable AI escape room was installed at the college for the day, open to groups of students there and from several of our other schools, along with visitors from other trusts and schools across the South West. Watching the students use it was a reminder that what still feels remarkable to many of us is, to them, simply part of how the world works. The novelty for them was using it in a lesson rather than at home.
On Friday the conference itself ran as a consultation. Trust and school leaders, technical staff and teachers were able to put some hard questions to people now working in the industry: the safe governance of AI, the energy and water costs that sit behind it, and, not least, the budget implications, because some of this is expensive. The thread that ran through the day chimed with how we already make decisions here. We ask whether something helps our teachers be excellent in front of children. If the answer is yes, we put time and money behind it. If not, we say no and move on. The most useful idea I took away was that the point of AI is not really to save time. It is to let people spend less of their day on mechanical tasks and more of it on the things humans do better. I was also glad to sit alongside our chair of trustees and reassure him that much of what was being promoted is already in our own AI planning, so what he is signing off is careful as well as ambitious.
Spending so much of the week at Ivybridge gave me time to notice something the visiting delegates kept remarking on. The students are forthcoming, they conduct themselves extremely well, and learning there is taken seriously. It quietly dismantles the idea that you have to choose between high standards and a caring environment. This school does both, and in large measure. If anyone doubts that, Ivybridge will happily have you in to see it for yourself.
The other story of the week was the heat. Across the Trust, leaders made sensible adjustments to uniform, water, break times and activities, and almost without exception our schools stayed open and learning carried on. I saw plenty of practical good sense in this. At Wembury, Year 6 took advantage of the air-conditioned classrooms and buddied up with younger children to help them with their learning, which is the kind of small thing that tells you a lot about a school. My thanks to heads and staff for keeping going through an awkward few days rather than reaching for what might be seen as the easy option.
There was a great deal happening in our schools beyond all that. Plympton St Maurice and Holbeton both ran residentials, the former at Mount Batten with kayaking, sailing and a fair amount of splashing about, the latter at Spirit of Adventure where the children pulled logs up a hill to make life easier for the next group, which I rather liked. Manor in Ivybridge took Year 4 to East Soar Farm. Buckfastleigh's Barn Owls went off to Buckfast Abbey to study the Anglo-Saxons and came back with their own brooches and runes.
In our secondaries, there was plenty to be proud of. Ivybridge's girls have become the school's first National NFL Flag Football team and are now national semi-finalists, having taken up a brand new sport and run with it. Their Rising Talent music event brought around fifty performers to the stage, including twelve local primary pupils. At Plymstock, KS3 Performing Arts students staged a Silver Arts Award showcase to an audience of more than 250, directed and choreographed by Year 9 Arts Leaders. George in Year 8 came through the Junior Maths Challenge into the Kangaroo round, no small feat. At Coombe Dean, Amelia in Year 11 was crowned U17 Four Nations Boxing Champion in Scotland, representing England Boxing. Across Callington and Sir James Smith's, students completed Duke of Edinburgh expeditions in conditions that, by the sound of it, tested everyone thoroughly.
Community life carried on too. Oreston's PTA ran a quiz night that, by all accounts, was a great evening, complete with a sparkly host's jacket. Plymstock welcomed Year 5 pupils from Pomphlett for a morning of maths and literature, and Oreston took Year 5 to the escape room session at Ivybridge. These links between our primaries and secondaries matter, and they happen because staff make time for them.
Looking to next week, there are several review and planning sessions with our three local authorities and other trusts. People sometimes imagine academy trusts work alone. We don't, and the work on shared concerns like attendance only happens through that kind of cooperation. We are also expecting visitors from the Department for Education at some of our schools, and I look forward to showing them children getting on well in calm, purposeful classrooms.
One thing I'll be holding in mind: how we keep the conversation about AI grounded in what actually helps teachers and children, rather than letting the technology set the agenda for us.
Thank you, as ever, for everything you do.
Warm regards,
Nat Parnell
CEO
