Welcome back everyone. Can I offer an extra special welcome to the children and families that are new to our schools.

Many of the young people and staff returned to their schools earlier in the week – it’s great to see everyone.

Can I start my blog by congratulating all the young people who succeeded in their exams? I know, from the heads in the schools, that they have worked so hard. It is not appropriate to pick out individuals, but well done to you all.

I’d also like to tell you all today about our amazing premises, IT and full year staff who have worked tirelessly over the summer vacation.

The premises staff have worked alongside outside contractors to ensure that Springboard, Hollinwood and Spring Brook have been completed and handed over so that they can be used by the children and young people. Each of these projects has been significant in its own right. Springboard and Spring Brook were both full refurbishments and Hollinwood was a full build of 8 new classrooms. Bearing in mind work on Hollinwood only started in June, it’s been a massive undertaking to complete it ready for children in September. All of these projects wouldn’t have been ready in time if it wasn’t for the hard work, commitment and resilience of our amazing premises staff. They have worked late into the night and at weekends. A herculean task.

We believe we have “finally” got a resolution to our building challenges at Hawthorns. Pierre is presently exploring where we place some new modular classrooms (hopefully they will be in situ and operational in 6-8 weeks). I’ve also been told that after 3 years of waiting the planned rear extension has now started. Exciting times.

In a similar vein I’d like to thank our IT teams. They have worked on every single site and at every single school to upgrade our IT infrastructures. As you know, we have around 2000 users and many people found that our old system could no longer cope with the traffic that was coming through it. I get slightly confused with the details here (!) but I’ve been reliably informed that the systems in all our schools have been significantly enhanced along with our wireless networks (especially for our iPads). Our IT teams have again worked over and above (and often alongside painters, decorators, builders and electricians). Thank you, guys – super work.

I was delighted (just for you, Lauren) to hear about the possibility of extra government funding for our schools and children. Let’s hope that the government keeps to its word and we see the end to some of the financial challenges we have faced over the past few years? Our children certainly deserve it.

I’ve managed to avoid any talk of football for most of the week! Blimey – what a mess. Anyhow, maybe next season I can see Bury play at Chadderton or Avro??

Have a great weekend,

Graham

You can find all Graham’s previous blog entries here