Blog - Annie's challenges

Bristol seems to be giving a cautious welcome to Annie Hudson, the city's new strategic director of children, young people and skills.

She won the top job earlier this month, after filling in following the early retirement of Heather Tomlinson at the start of the year.

Being a chief officer in Bristol cannot be easy because of the frequent changes of political control at the council.

But Annie has been selected by a panel including leading politicians of all parties, and she has been working here for several years, so she knows what will be involved.

Annie's background is in social services, rather than education, but she has quickly got to grips with the major issues facing schools in the city.

She won admiration for her handling of the primary admissions crisis and she has worked out some of the problems as well as opportunities from last year's Primary Review.

Annie is already going out of her way to meet primary head teachers, although at the rate of two a week it will take her a year to get round them all – and by the time she's done that there'll be a whole lot of new ones!