CEO’s Blog

First of all, can I start with an apology. I totally forgot to do a blog last week!

So, Happy New Year to everyone.

I wish I had a plausible excuse – but I haven’t really. Our family, like many others, had a rather chaotic Christmas break as both my wife and youngest daughter contracted Covid on (we think) Boxing day. We therefore spent most of the holiday in different rooms and not really speaking to each other. It was all very strange.

Fortunately, Olivia managed to get a clear lateral flow test on days 6 and 7 so was able to return to University in London. Paula still has a bad cough and is quite tired.

Thankfully they were all fully vaccinated.

Anyhow, let’s get to some updates. I’d like to start by welcoming a couple of senior staff into our Trust.

Scott McKeown has joined us from a college in Yorkshire as the head of New Bridge College and Shirley Woods Gallagher has joined the executive team to support us
with our commissioning arrangements. Shirley comes with a wealth of experience at both Manchester City Council and latterly she worked for Oldham council. I’m delighted to
welcome them both to our team.

Onto our schools and organisations. I’m going to start with an update on our Tameside schools. Samuel Laycock in Tameside is almost at the point of joining the Trust. Most of the due diligence has been completed and we’re just waiting for our legal team to sign off a couple of facilities management documents. I’m hopeful that they will part of our family of schools in the next few weeks.

Everything is going to plan around our new build for Hawthorns. We met with our families just before Christmas to keep them up to speed. Pierre has worked brilliantly with the team to get our designs to a really good position. I’m hopeful that we can start with the actual building in the very near future.

Our Oldham schools continue to be oversubscribed. New Bridge, Hollinwood and Spring Brook are all challenged by the numbers of children who want places. I’m aware that we are looking at extensions at both New Bridge and Hollinwood.

We definitely need to think
creatively about Spring Brook.

Staying in Oldham I have been absolutely blown away by the progress of our youngsters at Springboard Project. We must have more community placements at the Project than in the rest of Oldham combined. The team up in the town
centre are truly inspirational.

Some of the staff at Horizons have been laid low with Covid but we’ve managed to keep the building open. We’ve some exciting plans plans afoot.

I get so many compliments from our families about the quality of our staff teams.

They are the ones that make the difference. They go the extra mile. They are enthusiastic and committed. Passionate about making a difference.

To an individual, they are the ones that ‘create meaningful futures’.

Have a great weekend

Graham