Ahead of mayoral elections on 2 May 2024, in South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, and, for the first time, York and North Yorkshire, candidates are urged to work with the universities as part of a collective commitment “to widen and deepen the contribution of higher education the region’s growth, well-being and prosperity”.

Those who are successful at the ballot box are urged to adopt the five key asks ranging from creating “a new culture of business, enterprise and entrepreneurialism” to improving students’ experiences of the region.

The letter, which can be read in full here, has been penned by Chair of Yorkshire Universities (YU), Professor Karen Bryan OBE (left), on behalf of YU members Leeds Arts University; Leeds Conservatoire; Leeds Beckett University; Leeds Trinity University; Sheffield Hallam University; University of Bradford; University of Huddersfield; University of Hull; University of Leeds; University of Sheffield; University of York; and York St John University – who collectively have 220,000 students enrolled, with 75,000 graduating each year.

In the letter, Professor Bryan states that YU is a firm supporter of devolution and that it will “work strategically in partnership with local government, including Mayors and Combined Authorities, within and across the region.”

She adds: “In Yorkshire, we have one of the largest and most diverse regional HE eco-systems outside London. The sector contributes £8 billion per annum in output to Yorkshire’s economy, and it sustains 63,700 people in employment.

“In this open letter, on behalf of the Yorkshire Universities Board of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, we outline Five Key ‘Asks’ of candidates standing in this year’s three Mayoral elections in Yorkshire. We would encourage you to support these, and to feature them in your programmes should you be elected.”

The five headline asks are:

1. Champion Yorkshire as the region to invest, to live, to work, and to learn – including bringing Yorkshire’s HE sector directly into the heart of strategies; using “our world-class cultural assets and creative industries” to promote Yorkshire and attract more jobs; and joining YU’s campaign to make Yorkshire the preferred destination for UK and international students to study, predicated on national policy that encourages international students to study in the region.
2. Lead the efforts to create more sustainable and inclusive growth, attracting more well-paid and secure jobs into the region, including increasing and sustaining investment into the region’s physical and social infrastructure, especially health, and including better transport connections.
3. Support the contribution of Yorkshire’s universities to the regional skills, education, and training landscape – including the value of graduate talent, a focal point of YU’s ongoing work, and using devolved and national funding and stronger collaboration between Higher Education (HE) and further education to tackle skills gaps.
4. Create a new culture of business, enterprise and entrepreneurialism – this would involve building on the Investment Zones and Freeports programmes, to expand clusters, and using funding to drive a step-change in entrepreneurial innovation, including support for groups and individuals currently under-represented in enterprise.
5. Improve students’ experiences of living and studying in Yorkshire – this would include supporting the case for a fair and sustainable funding system for HE, and helping to improve students access to affordable, good quality housing and transport services.

The 17-year-old, from Corbridge, raced to victory at Croft Circuit on Saturday 17th February to clinch the career-launching prize, valued at up to £40,000. It marks a significant milestone for the teen, who is studying for his A Levels at Dame Allan’s Schools, in Newcastle, while embarking on a promising journey in motorsport.

Will was among thirty talented teenage drivers who participated in the rigorous one-day scholarship competition at the North Yorkshire racing circuit. Contenders took part in on-track driving assessments, group fitness challenges, simulated racing driving and pitstop activities.

Commenting after his success, Will said: “I’m extremely proud to represent the JSCC in their 10-year anniversary as their scholarship winner, especially given the incredible display of talent from the rest of the entrants. I really can’t wait for the start of my very first full season.”

Will started competing in the JSCC – a racing series for talented young drivers between the ages of 14 and 17, offering close and highly competitive racing at tracks across the UK – last year, having previously trained on a sim in his bedroom. He is the seventh driver to be awarded a JSCC scholarship since the series launched in 2014, with previous winners now having successful careers in F1 academy and F4.

JSCC coordinator Dave Beecroft, said: “We’re looking forward to working with this young man in 2024; a super scholarship winner!”

Will sat his GCSEs while competing as a rookie in the 2023 series. Despite being involved in a crash just days before his GCSE Geography exam, he collected an impressive set of grade 7s and an 8 on results day. He is now studying for A Levels in Geography, Design and Technology and Business at Dame Allan’s Sixth Form, in Fenham.

His mum, Tracey Crewdson, said: “Will works very hard and we owe so much to Dame Allan’s for the amazing grounding they have given him. The school has played a huge role in his journey.
“He is going to be a great ambassador for the JSCC series. While his driving ability was 99.9% of the scholarship assessment, his character, kindness and hard work ethic also shone through. This is a huge opportunity, and we are immensely proud of him.”

The opening rounds of the 2024 Junior Saloon Car Championship are scheduled to take place across the weekend of March 31/April 1 at Brands Hatch. As part of Will’s scholarship, all registration and race entry fees will be covered, and he will have use, transportation and storage of a race car for the full JSCC season. He will continue to race with Orex Competition during his final year as a junior.

Mrs Crewdson added: “His profile will be really raised this year before he goes on to race in adult competitive series. We don’t know which path he’ll go down, but as long as his future involves four wheels and a race track he’ll be happy!”

Will Scott, Principal at Dame Allan’s Schools, applauded Will’s success. He said: “Will demonstrates impressive resilience and determination. This wonderful scholarship opportunity on the back of an impressive set of GCSE results and a great start to his A Level studies is testament to his unwavering dedication and ability to excel in both academics and motorsports.”

Kids Country, an education programme for children from across the East of England and managed by the East of England Agricultural Society, took their popular Autumn Apples half-day workshop into Folksworth C of E Primary School, Kirkstone House School and Bellbird Primary School, to help more children have a better understanding of the field-to-fork journey of their food, and using that information to learn to make good consumer and health choices.

At Folksworth C of E Primary School, near Peterborough, headteacher Michelle Norbury said: “The practical activities combined with the way information is shared makes it enjoyable for children, but they are still learning. The event linked to the curriculum through food and nutrition too.”

Emily Lang, Year 5 teacher at The Bellbird Primary, Cambridge, said: “The children loved it and learned so much. Apples have become very popular in our class!” The event complemented some of our science and PSHE curriculum too.”

The Kids Country team were supported by AMT Fresh Partnership, Co-operative Central England, Sustainable PECT, and a squad of tireless volunteers.

Sandra Lauridsen, education manager at the East of England Agricultural Society, commented: “At Kids Country we love to make everyday and accessible British-grown food exciting, and our Autumn Apples event does just that year after year. An apple a day really does help keep the doctor away through its nutritional benefits, so to help make them and how they are grown exciting to children is great!

“Thank you to our corporate sponsors and partners, as well as our tireless volunteers and farmers, for helping this event happen – we couldn’t do it without you!”

If you would like to be involved in any way in future Kids Country food and farming events, either as a school, corporate or individual volunteer, or to sponsor Kids Country to help more schools experience the hands-on and memorable learning that Kids Country offers, please contact slauridsen@eastofengland.org.uk

To keep up to date with upcoming Kids Country events and the new 2023-24 academic year programme, you can also visit: https://www.eastofengland.org.uk/kids-country/ or follow the East of England Agricultural Society on Facebook, twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of British Science Week, an annual ten day celebration of all things STEM which this year will take place from 8th-17th March. The Kick Start Grant aims to give schools with children who are underrepresented in STEM subjects the chance to organise a programme of fun and engaging events and help the students discover the joy of science.

The grant, created by the BSA with support from UK Research and Innovation, intends to widen access and participation in STEM subjects by providing the opportunity for inspiration and engagement for children who may otherwise not have the opportunity to take part in science and discover their own passion for the subject.

In previous years, schools have used the grants to explore exciting STEM topics and activities such as a school-wide bridge building competition, hosting local ‘Festival of Science’ events, arranging visits to the London Zoo and Natural History Museum, hosting sensory exploration activities for SEND pupils, and more.

Applicant schools should be committed to breaking down misconceptions in STEM sectors and boosting confidence and enrichment for ethnic minority students or students from disadvantaged backgrounds and the BSA encourages applicants to reflect this in their proposed activities.

Susan Matambanadzo, Education Manager at the British Science Association said: “On the 30th anniversary of British Science Week, we are reminded of the great impacts the STEM sectors have on our society. From spaceships to solar energy to food science, it is important children of all backgrounds have the opportunity to engage with the world through science.

“We are dedicated to ensuring all children, especially those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or belong to ethnic minority communities, can engage in science learning through enriching projects and activities that help them discover their own love of STEM. Through Kick Start Grants, schools will receive the funding to help break down barriers to access a quality and inspiring science education.”

Kick Start Grants range from £150 or £700 depending on the level of activity or event applying schools plan to host. Any state-funded, non-selective schools or colleges in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are invited to apply if they meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Over 30% of pupils eligible for pupil premium or equivalent.
• Over 30% of pupils who are from ethnic minority backgrounds.
• Small school based in a remote and rural location.

Schools that apply for the grants will also be offered the opportunity to join the BSA’s newly launched Engage Teacher Network, a community of 1,500+ teachers who are committed to delivering science engagement activities for all students and who understand the barriers and potential solutions for schools in challenging circumstances. The Engage community encourages all teachers to share ideas, access free resources and apply for grants to help bring science to life for all young people.

Applications for Kick Start Grants close at 11.59pm, Monday 6th November 2023. For more information on Kick Start Grants, or to apply for a grant, please visit: https://www.britishscienceweek.org/grants/

The Kit Scheme, run in partnership with Nike, aims to encourage more young girls across England and Wales to participate in football and builds upon the 7,000 free football kits that have already been given away via the Premier League Primary Stars schools programme since 2017.

Premier League Primary Stars uses the appeal of the Premier League and professional football clubs to inspire children to be active and develop essential life skills. It is available to every primary school in England and Wales, inspiring girls and boys aged 5-11 in the classroom, the playground and on the sports field.

The programme supports teachers with free, downloadable, curriculum-linked resource packs and activities across PE, PSHE, Maths and English. More than 18,700 primary schools across England and Wales have taken part in Premier League Primary Stars to date.

Nick Perchard, Head of Community and Football Policy at the Premier League said: “We are pleased to be able to launch the Premier League Primary Stars Kit Scheme again in partnership with Nike, this time specifically to support and encourage more young girls to get involved in football.

“The Kit Scheme builds on the League’s ongoing support of women’s and girls’ football, having provided funding to aid the expansion of The FA’s Emerging Talent Centres and pathways for girls aged eight to 16. We hope as many schools as possible take up this opportunity.”

All teaching staff registered to Premier League Primary Stars, and who work with primary school pupils aged 5-11 in England and Wales, can apply for the Kit Scheme. Applications will need to include details on each school’s commitment to girls’ football and how the new kit will support an increase in girls’ participation in the sport.

Dan Burrows, Senior Director of Social & Community Impact at Nike said: “Nike is delighted to partner with the Premier League to launch the Premier League Primary Stars Kit Scheme. Our work with partners like the Premier League is vital to removing cultural, social and economic barriers to participation, so all kids, especially girls, have an opportunity to benefit from play and sport. Together, we can create an active next generation and a healthier and more equitable future for all.”
Successful applicants for the Premier League Primary Stars Kit Scheme will receive a set of Nike Park Short Sleeve shirts, shorts and socks (13 x outfield sets and x 1 goalkeeper set) – with a range of colours available.

The playing kit will be embellished with Premier League on the front of the shirt, No Room For Racism on the sleeve and will be numbered between one and 14 on the back, with Nike 2.0 hijabs also available as required.

Teachers can register for the Premier League Primary Stars Kit Scheme on www.PLPrimaryStars.com ahead of the application window closing on Friday 9 June 2023. Successful applicants will receive their kit during the Spring term 2024.

The Hub features a host of engaging resources varying from videos to lesson guides, assembly plans and handbooks, organised under six categories: ‘the journey of waste’, ‘food’, ‘clothing’, ‘plastic’, ‘composting’, and ‘take action for the environment’.

The Hub was launched in response to NLWA’s research project in 2022 with Keep Britain Tidy which set out to identify priority areas of interest and gaps relating to waste prevention education in north London. Users are invited to share their feedback about the Hub online, to help NLWA keep pace with schools’ needs and resource gaps.

To celebrate the launch of the Education Hub, NLWA is inviting schools to submit posters around the theme ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’. The top 30 entries will be professionally printed to form part of the construction fencing leading up to the brand new Reuse and Recycling Centre at the redeveloped Eco Park in Edmonton. Schools will also be entered into a prize draw with a chance to win either a £200 voucher or an interactive assembly and Q&A on what happens to north London’s rubbish and recycling once it’s been collected. Details on how to take part in the competition can be found on NLWA’s Schools Competition page.

Councillor Clyde Loakes, NLWA Chair, said: “There’s great opportunity to teach children about their community and how the waste we produce impacts climate change – the objective of the Education Hub is to support local teachers and make waste reduction behaviours part of every north London school’s bread and butter, from a young age.

“The Hub is a fantastic directory that brings together some of the best educational resources out there and promotes interactivity. If every north London school integrated consumption and waste prevention into their curriculum, we’d be looking at a generation who see this as the norm and is empowered by their potential to mitigate climate impacts.”

Resources on the Hub have links to the national curriculum, including English, Science, Geography, Citizenship, and Art and Design, making it easy for teachers and home school tutors to integrate environmental and waste prevention education into the syllabus.

For further information about the Hub, please go to the North London Waste Education Hub.

Please note: the competition is only open to primary schools in the seven member boroughs of the North London Waste Authority: Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, and Waltham Forest.

Eco-Schools’ new ‘Cut Your Carbon’ campaign is here to help schools do just that with a few very simple actions.

There are less than seven years to reach zero emissions to have a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees of global warming.

Yet in seven years’ time no current primary school pupils will have even had a chance to start taking action as adults to solve the climate crisis.

With UNICEF’s latest report calculating 1 billion children are at extremely high risk from the climate crisis, it’s now up to every individual and organisation, including schools, to work together towards the shared goal of reducing emissions as far and as fast as possible.

What every school does now has to go beyond education for the future, implementing concrete actions that improve the life chances of children around the world.

Eco-Schools’ programme manager Adam Flint said: “As we all work towards a better future for our country’s young people, it’s important that we raise awareness and reduce our carbon consumption as much as possible. Every day is a new opportunity to make positive change.”

‘Cut Your Carbon’ is here to help pupils raise awareness about the everyday changes that their school and wider community can make. It also outlines actions that can make an immediate impact in three areas that have big carbon footprints: clothing, energy use and school meals. Together, schools across England are committing to taking action to cut their carbon.

• Reusing 50% of school uniforms could save the same annual carbon emissions as everyone in Chichester (the same weight as the Empire State Building – every year!)
• Cutting schools’ energy usage by just 10% could save the same weight of emissions as 3 Empire State Buildings
• More environmentally-friendly school meals could save the same carbon emissions currently produced by everyone in Oxford each year – the same weight as 6 Empire State Buildings.

Eco-Schools is asking schools to pledge to participate in the campaign through a few simple actions that any school can take in each of these areas that will collectively make a huge difference. You can find out more about the incredible difference schools taking part in the programme are marking in Eco-Schools’ 2022 impact report.

The campaign launches on the 6th February and runs to 10th February, 2023. Those wanting to find out more about the campaign or take part should go to the Eco-Schools website: eco-schools.org.uk/cut-your-carbon

Last year, the government committed to supplying state-funded schools across England with defibrillators to make sure there is a device in every school.

It follows campaigning from the Oliver King Foundation and its founder Mark King, who has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the need for defibrillators since he tragically lost his son at the age of 12 to cardiac arrest while swimming at school.

The deliveries of the first defibrillators mark the start of a roll out of over 20,000 defibrillators to almost 18,000 state-funded schools by the end of the academic year.

The government is also supporting schools in making defibrillators available to the community, with external heated defibrillator cabinets being provided to primary and special schools in areas where provision is lower.

An internal cabinet is being provided to secondary schools that are receiving two or more defibrillators, so one can be placed at the school’s sports facility, where a cardiac arrest is more likely to happen.

The Oliver King Foundation and other leading charities, including the British Heart Foundation, Resuscitation Council UK and St John Ambulance, have supported the creation of updated guidance which will give schools the tools and knowledge they need to use their new defibrillators.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “Today we’re celebrating a huge milestone as we start deliveries of defibrillators to schools, working towards every school having one by the end of the academic year.

“None of this would have come about without the relentless and brave campaigning of Mark King and the Oliver King Foundation, and we are extremely grateful to him and other leading charities for the ongoing support they will doubtless provide schools from lesson plans to staff training.”

Founder of the Oliver King Foundation Mark King said: “This is a landmark moment and will be welcomed by pupils, parents and teachers up and down the country.

“It is a proud day for us because we’ve campaigned for schools to have access to defibrillators for over a decade. It is a major victory for the Oliver King Foundation.

“Defibrillators save lives and I have no doubt that lives will now be saved so that families do not have to suffer the heartbreak of unnecessarily losing a child. This is for our Ollie.”

This is the largest defibrillator programme in England to date and will ensure that pupils and staff have access to this lifesaving first aid equipment.

The new guidance provides advice for schools on how to make their defibrillator available to the community. The government is also encouraging schools to sign up to The Circuit, the national defibrillator network.

As part of the roll out awareness videos are being provided, showing how simple defibrillators are to use, and schools are being encouraged to share these videos in staff meetings and assemblies.

This follows the announcement last month of a new £1 million fund to increase the number of defibrillators in communities most in need – providing an estimated 1,000 new defibrillators in community spaces across England.

The pilot, which is funded until August 2023, will involve staff from 150 maintained mainstream schools in England receiving free-to-access training to improve the way they use assistive technology (AT).

Delivered with partners at Microlink, the training will encourage staff to use technology which they already have available to them to reduce or remove the barriers to learning for all children and young people, including for learners with SEND.

Schools interested in participating should visit www.nasen.org.uk to express their interest and be kept updated with details about the training offer and next steps in the application process.

The programme builds on the success of a previous AT Training Pilot, which also saw nasen collaborate with Microlink, to run online training sessions to nominated AT Champions in around 80 schools in England. Then, as now, the partnership brought together expertise in AT and SEND, along with an understanding of the day-to-day operation of schools and how assistive technology supports an inclusive classroom for all learners – both with and without SEND.

nasen CEO, Annamarie Hassall MBE, said: “Assistive Technology has an increasingly important role to play in education for all children and young people, and we know that its effective use can be empowering – even life-changing – for a learner with SEND or learning differences.

“nasen is thrilled to have been selected by the Department for Education to run this programme, and delighted to be teaming up with Microlink once more to help ensure all learners are given the tools required to enable progress and achieve the best outcomes.”

Marius Frank, Head of Education and Project Lead at Microlink, added: “We are absolutely delighted to be working once again in partnership with nasen. The feedback we received from primary and secondary schools participating in the pilot programme earlier this year was fantastic. The moment teachers release the power of Assistive Technologies in mainstream classes, so many children and young people get almost immediate benefits.”

To find out more and to express interest in a place on the programme, visit www.nasen.org.uk. Successful applicants will be informed by the end of January, with the first training sessions being delivered by the end of March 2023.