Back in Sweden after excellent visit to Leeds schools

We are all back home in Sweden after a great few days in Leeds with Education Leeds and four Leeds schools. We visited New Bewerley and Robin Hood primary schools on Tuesday after having a morning of fantastic discussion sessions with Leeds professionals. The group form Växjö had a great time in Leeds as were very impressed by the professionalism, atmosphere, positiveness and great leadership in both Education Leeds and the schools. We at ICG have visited Leeds schools now for 5 years and every time we come back we see more and more improvements, a great and dedicated approach from leaders and teaching staff alike and this gives us an enormous kick to keep exposing Swedish education professionals to this exciting Leeds story

Leeds schools- outstanding learning places

We are in Leeds in the UK with Education Leeds working with the sharing of ideas and systems related to education with a Swedish city. What we have heard and seen so far has been extremely impressive and stimulating. we started yesterday by listening to Chris Edwards, the chief executive of Education Leeds. Chris gave a very impressive and stimulating talk on the journey of Education Leeds during the last 8 years. This was followed by the group from Sweden joining a range of discussion groups of some of the initiatives and programmes in education in Leeds. During the afternoon the group visited The Derek Fatchett City Learning centre which was an outstanding example of ICT and media support for schools and communities. After this the group split into two to visit two of the real success stories in Leeds schools, Carr Manor High and Pudsey Grangefield. The respective principals, Simon and Ken showed us their outstanding schools and talked about some of the initiatives and programmes the schools were involved with in improving performance. Carr Manor has a great system of student mentorship and performance management. Pudsey Grangefield has great leadership and is a fine example of a brand new school. Ken Cornforth the principal explained to us just how he had incorporated a number of new design features into the construction of the school based on a visit to Stockholm in 2005 hosted by ICG. In the late afternoon we were hosted by the Lord Mayor of Leeds to a very enjoyable Civic reception. Jenny Hill the international schools coordinator is doing a wonderful job in coordinating this visit and we look forward to todays programme.

The English schools debate

I have just read on the BBC about the Conservative party views on introducing so called 'primary academies' if they come to power at the next election. this is driven I believe by policy on 'freeing up' schools from LEA control. Click on the link in the title to access the article. Lots of positives in this and many negatives but it is obvious more must be done to address the poor standards and opportunities in education in deprived areas. The UK has some horrendously bad deprivation is inner large cities which in realty has not changed for the better by a real noticeable degree for generations

Outstanding week with customers

What a great week for ICG and our customers. Much time has been spent with ABB in the Components company as well as working with the international corporate HR recruitment team. As well as Stockholm City Council we have been with the top executives in Helsingborg City Council and Botkyrka Council. It is a short weekend for us as we are on our way to Leeds to visit schools and executives discussing education issues. Meetings are planned also with Education Leeds Chief Executive Chris Edwards and the international schools coordinator Jenny Hill

Speed

Well well it seems like me and ICG 1 (the car) have done it again. In trying to make sure I am always on time or early for customer meetings I misjudged the idiotic road signs to Ludvika where the road is completely wide enough and similar to the 90km zone and in patches is reduced to 70km speed limit. Guess what! I was doing 90km per hour in the 70km zone and the camera flashed- guess it will be a fine of 4.000kr. Sometimes I wonder about the logic of the speed zones but I should really admit they are there for a reason and if it saves life as is said then that is okay by me. Thank god its Friday tomorrow.

At ABB this week

ICG consultants including yours truly are working with International Presentation training with a number of Executive trainees at ABB in Ludvika this week and it is very inspiring to work with groups of dynamic young masters graduates. The communication skills of these young professionals is outstanding especially considering they are communicating in English which is of course their second language. More info to come at weekend

Thursday and the end of another week

Thankfully Easter is nearly here which gives us time to recover some energy and have some good 'family time'. This week has been extra busy for ICG working across the public and private sectors. I have spent two days with top ABB marketing management as well as senior politicians and officers, with other consultants involved with political figures as well as senior officers in local and regional government. Next week promises to be exciting as we are working with a top group from Stockholm preparing for an international seminar and visits programme in May.
I have spent a couple of evenings working with mentoring two young Human Resource Managers in Australia and this idea of remote mentoring is challenging but very interesting and I know that what we are doing is really helping these two. I wish I could do more of this but lack of time is a real issue.

New week

Had contact with a number of key persons today in planning some of ICG's upcoming programmes. Later this month we will be in Leeds with Växjö Council's senior education team on a school visit and seminar programme which is now all planned and finalised. It is great to hear that Jenny Hill has been seconded to Education Leeds from the International office of the council. This is sure to assist in the developing partnership arrangements with Stockholm and Helsinki. The opportunities that can result from this partnership are huge if the parties to it can really come together as planned in September and take the step of setting the ball rolling at operational level- that is with the schools

Day of political leader training

I was in Västerås all day Friday working with political leaders from the county of Västmanland - a challenhing day with some really good outputs. ICG consultants this week have been active across both the private and public sectors with work in Stockholm, Helsingborg, Västerås working with ABB Robotics, Stockholm City Council, Västmanlands Kommunförbundet, Helsingborg City Council,Västerås City Council, Byggnads Mimer. Next week promises to be another exciting and interesting period as we are preparing for visits to England later in the month as well as working again with top management of private and public sector organisations.
Since Richard Stiff from North Lincolnshire was here last month we have had more requests to listen to him. The word has spread about his talk in Rinkeby to others in Stockholm City so I am hoping Richard will come back later in the year to share his views and knowledge on Children's Services in England

Stockholm- The Capital

I have spent the last two days in Stockholm, yesterday meeting the Director of compulsory schools for Stockholm City Council and today spending the whole day with a number of head teachers working with their internationalisation processes. I must say it was a little hectic yesterday around City Hall. As I was trying to park my car there was a range of security and police and secret service personnel. I found out quickly why as Mr Tony Blair, Mr Bill Clinton and the Prime Minister of Sweden Mr Fredrik Reinfeldt arrived for the climate conference. From media reports today it appears that Tony Blair's speech was very well received. He is a popular man in this country