Welcome

Thank you for your interest in this critical leadership role. I am delighted that you are considering applying to join us.

Across the partnership, our collective ambition for our children and young people knows no bounds. Our children's achievements and life-chances depend on the rest of us knowing that nothing but excellence will do. You would be joining a Children and Young People's Partnership where colleagues in every sector are committed to working together to make the difference for all of our children and people. We are looking for someone who can provide strong leadership across the borough, continuing to challenge standards and working with colleagues from a range of professional disciplines to ensure that everyone contributes to our ambition of closing our achievement gaps and significantly raising standards across the board. You will have the freedom to be creative and radical in your approach and to use your experience to find innovative ways to make the difference.

This is an exciting time to join Lewisham. In 2008, our schools celebrated the borough's best ever KS2 and GCSE results and rapid progress is being made in our schools building programme that will see world class facilities for every secondary school in Lewisham. We were one of the first Local Authorities to establish federations and collaboratives of schools to build leadership capacity and strengthen personalised learning and rates of progression. We wrap our targeted services around our collaboratives and federations to secure a strong early intervention infrastructure and we expect every school to play its full role in ensuring our children are healthy and safe, as well as achieving. Every child in Lewisham is everyone's responsibility and I hope you enjoy reading our new 2009-12 Children and Young People's Plan which sets out our aspirations in more detail.

We are looking for someone with the passion, insight and creativity to take us forward to our next stage of improvement. If you are as excited as we are about the possibilities ahead of us, we would very much like to hear from you.

Frankie Sulke

Executive Director, Children and Young People