For those of you have been logging in regularly for updates about CAPP extended services, you may vaguely recall that this time last year I chose to write about the the "Mad March Hare" (accompanied by a brief, but possibly inappropriate, description of the unpredictable, rather over-excitable breeding habits of these elusive creatures). 

A year later - and I rather regret having used my most appropriate subject for 2010 (despite being quite proud of being a year ahead of the 'Alice' trend); but there's no denying it - this month I am starting to feel as though I have morphed into the Mad March Hare at Tim Burton's Tea Party.  A dormouse asleep in my teapot notwithstanding; it has been positively crazy!

So I need to start with a small apology.  If my contact with CAPP schools and partners has been a wee bit haphazard this bonny month of March (if Johnny Depp can slip into Scottish every time he gets stressed in the new 3D Alice in Wonderland - then I shall do so too) please be reassured that I am terrifically busy working in the background on our Partnership's behalf, trying to embed sustainability into our extended services for the year ahead.

So moving quickly onto news and updates as this month is speeding by in the manner of Alice's White Rabbit:

First of all, I hope that you have had a chance to take a peek at our Draft CAPP Extended Services Area Action Plan?  If not, there is a link to the document below for partners to download.  This is a living document so it is still open for our partners to include and contribute their targets to fit within our sub-categories. I must confess that it was much easier to write this year primarily because the ideas were formulated as a partnership, but also because we needed simply to tidy up some loose ends to ensure that we were offering 'beyond' our full core offer.  May I say a huge thank you to those of you who gave up your valuable time to attend our Action Planning Workshop at the beginning of the month - your help and input was very much appreciated. 

In addition, I have been travelling around visiting schools to finish my Audit visits.  Unfortunately, I have just one school who has yet to complete their form or book their ESCO visit, but I think it is now high time that I post them off to the Hampshire database before the end of the financial year.  As some of our audits were carried out back in the summer and autumn term, please can I kindly request that if there is a service you have added since my first visit, just to let me know by the end of March. 

I would like to say thank you for the incredibly warm welcome I receive when I visit our schools.   The Receptionists are always bright, cheerful and a real asset to our schools - and may I say how lovely it was to see so many extended school notice boards at the school gates.

In the interest of staff development, I was extremely fortunate to attend the 'Beyond Horizons' Family Learning Conference at Calshot Activity Centre at the beginning of this month.  This fantastic event celebrated the achievements of the Hampshire partnerships who received Big Lottery Funding to deliver innovative Family learning (including our close neighbours in Havant and Gosport).  It gave me the opportunity to see how we could use some of their fantastic (and often inexpensive) ideas to engage with our own families. At the end of the event I was handed an excellent toolkit for our own partnership. If any of you would like to borrow this file with their trailblazer Family Learning ideas, then please get in touch. 

The added bonus to this Conference - all of the practitioner's were encouraged to participate in the activities our Hampshire families took part in during their activity week at Calshot.  Please see the photos of our incredibly happy day at Calshot:

As it approaching six months since we established the Cams Community Club for older residents in Fareham. I felt our partnership may be interested to read my March 2010 Progress Report.  Please find a copy below:

What a written Report cannot capture effectively is the lovely relaxed and happy atmosphere in the classes, and particularly in the Dining Hall when all of our Club members congregate to socialise.  Feeling that I had been neglecting my 'hands-on' duties of late, I popped into school on a rainy Tuesday morning (see photos above) to find a group of four retired citizens in the Library studying Digital Photography, and another group of four busy surfing the web.  Along the corridor (passing a line of year 8 girls looking a little pale after their HPV shots) and upstairs in one of the music rooms, I found a group of 24 ladies (and one solitary gentleman) belting out a tune from Sister Act.  After the classes ended almost all of our club members met in the Dining Hall for refreshments; many remaining for lunch to participate in the afternoon programme.  The verbal feedback and messages of thanks left me with a warm glow.  Congratulations to Cams Hill.

Another wonderful piece of news to reach our partnership this month comes from Portchester Community School.  On 5 March the UNICEF accreditors judged our Community Comprehensive School to be a “benchmark” for all other schools.  After achieving the UNICEF RRSA Level One in November 2007, Portchester has worked hard to be the first secondary school in the UK to reach Level Two.  Now if that isn't worth banging a tune out on the Portchester steel pans, then I don't know what is!

http://www.portchester.hants.sch.uk/

Read more about this fantastic news by following the link above.  On behalf of all of the partnership, may I send a collective congratulations to Portchester Community School for their achievement - it is truly commendable.

I have a couple of dates for partners to put into your diaries:

Firstly news of an event funded by Find Your Talent - PUSH.  As the lights go forward on Saturday 27th March 2010, PUSH is throwing some light on some of Hampshire's cultural and historical treasures in Southampton, Portsmouth, Fareham and Gosport.  The Light Night/Lost Hour Programme will see cultural organisations opening their doors and putting on an exciting programme of theatre, music, story-telling and more.  Here in Fareham at 7.00 and 8.00 pm you can pop down to Westbury Manor Museum to witness Light Nights - Writing on the Wall; a fantastically ambitious light projection and street dance project based upon a WW II theme. 

The next date for your diary also takes place on Saturday 27th March 2010.  On this date we will also celebrate the Fareham Festival of Learning.  If you pop into the town centre between 10.00 am - 2.00 pm there will be a variety of FREE activities and workshops for all ages including: Arts & Crafts, Dance, IT, Family History, Matisse, Circus Skills and much, much more.  Please come and find us at Westbury Manor Museum, West Street Precinct, Ashcroft Arts Centre and last but certainly not least...The Pompey Learning Bus.

To advertise this FREE event, please feel free to download the event flyer below:

I would also like to invite CAPP partners to please come to our Open Evening at X-Perience Young Persons' Centre on Wednesday 21st April 2010 between 7.00 - 9.00pm.  Following a recent major re-fit we have finally cleaned away the last of the brick dust and we are now proud to open the doors to professionals, parents and teenagers to see our beautiful new IT suite and catering kitchen.  With such fantastic new facilities, we are very keen to work with more young people from 13 - 19 years, so please take the opportunity to meet the staff and see the work that we do at the Youth Centre. 

X-Perience Young Persons' Centre Invite

Our local Youth Team spent the day in West Street Precinct this March promoting the new facilities to young people, but we would really appreciate your help to send this invite as widely as possible throughout your networks to parents and carers in the Fareham Town Centre area - we are especially keen to see how we can develop the Centre to meet their needs. 

In addition, we are forward planning for our (Big Lottery funded) Fareham Borough Council Young Person's Summer Events. The first of these events shall take place on Sunday 27th June 2010 at Fernham Hall (happily an indoor event this year after being caught in last year's downpour at Park Lane) and our second event will take place at Southfield Park in Portchester on Saturday 17th July 2010.  Advertising is still being finalised, but this will be available for distribution to all of our partners working with young people as soon as it becomes available.

Finally, after the recent successful Young Persons' Event at Portchester Community Centre, there shall be another opportunity for young people to take part in Battle of the Bands Part II.  I am digging out my body armour, steel capped boots and air freshener in preparation for this event on Sunday 27th June 2010.  If you would like more details about Battle of the Bands (or have a teenager with a burning desire to yell down the microphone and make my ears bleed again) then please get in contact with James Cannons at Portchester Community Centre.

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I shall very quickly revisit the L.E.A.P Advantage Subsidy as the funding will be arriving shortly.  If I could just remind you that my Presentation and the School Briefing Pack for the Subsidy is available on the January Blog page (downloadable if you require extra copies).

IMPORTANT:

If I could please gently remind head teachers to detach, sign and return the School Agreement Document on the last page (there is a copy of the agreement criteria in your pack) as soon as possible and return it to me by post.  We will not be able to release funding to your school without this signed agreement.

More good news to make us L.E.A.P!

We have been allocated a substantial amount of 'start-up funding' for our L.E.A.P Advantage Subsidy

I would really like to see this funding used directly for children and young people who are most in need of a 'break'.  For secondary schools, you will have already been offered the opportunity to send your students to an Easter Clowning School working in Partnership with Ashcroft Arts Centre.  I am really keen to promote this fantastic opportunity as this could make such a difference to a young person's aspirations by allowing them explore beyond their usual experiences; with clowning, rhythm, physicality, acrobatics and delving into the realms of the surreal and absurd.  Please check out Le Navet Bete’s website www.lenavetbete.com to see what they do.  

We shall also be piloting our evaluation documentation during this Easter break, so I shall be asking schools who are sending vulnerable children to participate in play schemes funded by the L.E.A.P Advantage Subsidy, that you please use the forms in your School Briefing Pack and offer some feedback about the activity form and evaluation documents.  I look forward to hearing your comments.

And many thanks in advance for your cooperation!

As always, I shall shoot off now (as hypothetically 'the white rabbit is tapping his pocket watch') and leave you with my usual end of month chuckle.  Feeling inspired by the craziness of this March, I hope this little bit of madness I stumbled upon makes you smile...

and finally, one of my favourites yet:

Parent's Excuse Letters to School