Welcome back, everyone. I hope you have all had a wonderful summer.

Say it quietly, but it feels like we are getting back to some sort of post-covid normality. This week we have seen the children, young people and staff return to all our schools and organisations. I’ve always loved the first few weeks of term – they’re full of a mix of optimism, excitement and apprehension.

So, an update as to what’s happened over the Summer. I’ll start in Tameside.

Planning is now well under way for, what we are calling as a working name, Hawthorns 2.

The team at Tameside have been doing site appraisals and transport plans. We’re really motoring along. We’ve also set up our satellite site at the Discovery Academy in Hattersley.

My thanks go to the team at the Victorious Academy Trust who have made our children and staff so very welcome.

Moving onto the secondary provision in Tameside and Samuel Laycock School. As many of you will be aware our Trust has been supporting the school for the last 6 months. Over the summer Helen Wilson was confirmed as being the Acting Head of School and our Trust is working with the Regional School’s Commissioner to bring Samuel Laycock into our family of schools. The Trust sees this as a really positive development as it will allow an improved continuum of provision between Hawthorns and Samuel Laycock.

We are presently working with Tameside council to explore opportunities for the post 16 provision. We are absolutely determined to bring our vision of “Creating Meaningful Futures” into the borough. It’s so exciting.

Over in Oldham, we have totally upgraded the front facade of Hollinwood Academy. The team have also done a number of internal alterations to ensure the learning environment is better fit for purpose.

We heard that New Bridge School has been successful in gaining another £1.2m to build another extension at the back of the site. This will give the team extra space to work with the young people. 

It’s been reasonably quiet at the New Bridge College and Learning Centre.

Onto Springbrook…

Like all of our schools we have seen an increase in numbers from where we were last year. We’ve done some minor adjustments to both the Lower and Upper sites.

We’re looking forward to an Ofsted visit at some point this year where we can showcase the

progress the school has made over the last few years. The staff have really embraced the change agenda and our children and young people in this school are progressing brilliantly.

Springboard has also had a bit of a face lift over the summer…

As many of you know, Alison moved on to being the head at New Bridge School and Mike is now heading up the project.

We have developed a satellite centre, in Limeside, in conjunction with our partners at Avro. It’s another way we can support our learners into the world of work within our communities.

Horizons has struggled over the last few months mainly due to Covid. We’re hopeful that the young people and their families will begin, over the next period of time, to see an uninterrupted service.

Finally, into Rochdale. I have to admit that the work on progressing our new free school is painfully slow. We now have a preferred contractor, however, as this project is funded directly from central government, there are lots of hurdles to get over. It’s very frustrating as I know we have young people waiting for places and we haven’t even put a shovel into the ground.

That’s the progress over the summer – let’s hope for another amazing school year.

I’m really looking forward to it.