CEO’s Blog

Hi everyone…

It was my honour to be recently invited to the DofE Ambassadors presentation evening.

Around 20 young people are chosen to act as ambassadors and work across the country to promote the programme.

The reason I had been invited was one of our ex-students, Jack Bailey, was one of these young people.

Jack attended a couple of our schools. Since leaving us he’s now massively involved in a huge amount of voluntary work and has found employment at Ikea.

Jack’s story is truly inspirational. By his own admission when he was younger, he faced a number of challenges. However, through his own ambitions and the influence of his family and an immensely dedicated and skilled staff team, he found a pathway that suited him. Jack is now a regular presenter at many events and is incredibly open about his journey.

At the DofE presentation event, he articulately told the assembled group about his experiences. What made it even more remarkable was he had 1:1 conversations with Prince Edward (Earl of Wessex) and Oliver Phelps (George Weasley in the Harry Potter Films). He wasn’t at all phased!

Jack always mentions our local area and New Bridge – he’s a shining example of our vision of creating meaningful futures.

Here’s the film:

https://youtu.be/_XLz3wUKldQ 

Jack’s presentation came at a pertinent time, as on the same morning, I’d signed off a proposal to set up a formal process of better understanding our families and young people’s perceptions. We are anticipating this project starting after the Easter holiday and will involve all our settings.

Here’s the remit:

“New Bridge is proud of its track record of securing meaningful futures for its young people. We are proud of our co-production values and will always strive to be better and do more. Whilst we engage in student voice work, we recognition there is more we can do to capture the lived experience, feelings and wishes of children and their families who are part of our trust.

We want to capture the lived experience of children and families to better understand their lived experience of

Admissions
Induction
Learning
Cultural activities
Social inclusion/isolation
Employment and training
Personalised budgets
We are anticipating these findings will help us in our strategic planning.”

From a national perspective, we are all anticipating announcements on the Schools White paper, SEND Green Paper and Social Care review in the next few weeks. Some of the content promises to open lots of conversations and debates.

Locally we’re anticipating welcoming Samuel Laycock into our family of schools on 01/04/2022. Over the next few weeks, we will be organising meetings for all stakeholders to give them an opportunity to listen to Helen and her team about the plans for the school. Members of the Trust executive and central teams will also be available for queries and questions. I’m really looking forward to meeting you all.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any issues.

Take care

Graham