Bideford Learning Community, or BLC, has replaced the former Bideford Academic Council and aims to provide initiatives, support and discussion forums for all schools in the Bideford area of north Devon, England. View map here

The BLC is made up of head teachers and staff from all our partner schools and has a rotating Chairperson. Currently, our Chair is Susan Freeman, Head teacher of Appledore Primary, with the Vice Chair role being taken by Babs Johnson, Head teacher of St George's C of E Infants, Northam. The BLC meet half termly to discuss and swap information.

Compared to many other geographical areas covered by similar organisations the BLC is unusual in the fact that our partner schools are spread far and wide. The BLC area stretches some 20 miles from Hartland in the west to Instow in the east and encompasses small villages, farming communities and the larger conurbation of Bideford. North Devon has a wide mixture of rural and urban areas; some affluent, some amongst the poorest in the region. All of these factors can make the sharing of good practice challenging. Hence the need for the BLC.

	To compliment the work of the BLC the original Web site was created by Matt Cole at St Margaret's with assistance from Devon Curriculum Services. The main aim being to enable effective sharing of good practice amongst the partner schools within the community. Matt has recently passed the baton on to the Bideford College Web Development team who will endeavour to build on Matts strong foundation.

A new key feature is the online forum which will allow members to directly post information about activities, workshops, events, examples of good practice and to keep abreast of developments within the BLC area.

As ever, we hope that this site will be used primarily by the Partner Schools to illustrate those issues coming from the BLC meetings, especially our drive to build a relevant, creative curriculum for our youngsters and share good practice. In addition, we hope that the content will be a valuable bank of ideas for the wider educational community.

Partner schools are encouraged to contribute material to the site either through the forum, BLC meetings or by submitting articles and file attachments to sgknowler@bideford.devon.sch.uk

Please read our guidance for web publishing first by clicking HERE.