Graham's Blog... First of all, can I start this week’s blog with an apology. I didn’t get round to writing a blog last week. I rarely miss, but I just had one of those weeks! It’s quite interesting as I don’t think I was alone in having 'one of those weeks' – many of...

Hot off the press! I heard some great news this week... The Trust has been successful with its bid to take a group of our 16+ students to the USA, next year. We received 90k from the Governments Turing Fund. We are one of just 3 special schools/trusts in the UK to get...

Sad News   I received some dreadfully sad news on Wednesday. Jean Webber, who many of you will remember, sadly passed away following a short illness. I’m going to dedicate this blog to one of the most influential colleagues and inspirational people I have ever...

Rather a hectic week...   Hi, all... I’m still rather frustrated at not having enough time to get round our schools and spend time with the children and staff teams. Most of my time this week has been spent looking at finances and our future direction of travel....

  Hi, everyone! We’re now well into the new school term and it’s all systems go! This week I’ve been involved in supporting a couple of our schools with their Ofsted preparation, as well as working alongside our Hawthorns and Rochdale teams in thinking about...

An eventful week... I’ve had quite an eventful week. On Tuesday I had the privilege of listening to Alison Cottrell, from Hawthorns, presenting to a national working party about how our children in school have approached the issue of recycling and being ecologically...

The Future of Schooling...  Next week I’m chairing a national meeting exploring what the future will look like for schooling in England. I’m certain there will be considerable discussion about specialist schools, PRUs and Alternative provision. The discussion is...

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....