Well, we nearly got our wish! Last week I blogged that I hoped that Ofsted visited New Bridge. Guess what, same inspection different school. The Ofsted team descended on Spring Brook on Tuesday and Wednesday!

First of all, I’d like to thank our amazing young people and staff team. They were remarkable from the day Ofsted rang until the moment they left. I’d also like to pass on our thanks to our families and governors. Our families said such wonderful things about our school. I really hope some of your comments will be published in the final report.

Colleagues from our other schools and the central team were quick to offer their support. I’d like to thank them for the valuable assistance they gave our Spring Brook team.

Finally, I’d like to pass on my thanks to our superb governors and trustees – they were put under quite an amount of pressure. Every one of them stepped up to the mark and we were, collectively, able to tell the story about the journey the school has been through.

As you will be aware, I am not in a position to give you the outcome. What I am able to share with you is that the narrative and content of the report will certainly highlight some of the work we have started. I am hopeful that it will also celebrate how well our children are progressing within our new curriculum models.

Ofsted is a stressful time for everyone involved. It places everyone under considerable pressure. The inspectors, themselves, have a really tricky job. They have two days to try and amass a huge amount of evidence and make sense of it. It’s no easy job. As soon as we get the final report we will send it to you all. So, just New Bridge to go this year and we’ll have the set!

Elsewhere across the trust life goes on. We’ve got building projects at four of our schools. They have finally started work at Hollinwood Academy. Families will recall that earlier in the year we held a meeting to look at space and capacity. Our extension will give us eight extra classrooms and I know the team are looking at reducing most of the class sizes.

You will recall that we were fortunate in securing extra funding for our extension at the New Bridge School site. The contractors are working really well and we are looking at a completed project early in the new calendar year. This project also involves extending the outside play space for the youngsters at both New Bridge and Hollinwood and the team are also exploring our very own cycle track.

Moving on to our new free school, the Springboard Project. I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly thank our architects, Cowan’s, and our building contractors, Conlon’s. From day one they have been a joy to work with. They are considerate and professional. With some projects we have been involved with in the past, we have been concerned about many, many aspects of build quality and working to deadlines. Cowan’s and Conlon’s will secure us a superb town centre building and deliver it ready for the new academic year.

We’ve also had some better news at Hawthorns. The saga with the full extension continues – I don’t have enough space in this blog to tell you the tale! However, earlier in the week the LA agreed the erection of some semi-permanent modular buildings. Everyone is working towards these buildings being on site and operational for the start of the new school year.

Be careful what you wish for lol.

Graham

You can find all Graham’s previous blog entries here