Its been another busy week with things progressing on all fronts, but before we get to that an update of something that happened a couple of weeks ago in half term.

I was lucky enough to be invited with about another 70 or so headteachers and leaders in the same position of opening a new Academy to 10 Downing Street. Because of the announcements of new free schools which were made today we were asked not to talk about it.

At the reception were the Prime Minister, The Secretary of State for Education and the Schools Minister. We were there for just over an hour, looking at work done by local students, talking about our new schools with each other and there were speeches. In her speech the Prime Minister was good enough to thank us for the work we were doing in creating new opportunities for young people. It would be remiss of me not to say, that while I was lucky enough to be invited, it is a team of people who have been working on this project for the past 18 months and every one of their contributions has been a valuable part of getting us ready to open.

It was a fantastic experience and it’s wonderful to think that our Academy was recognised in that way. Sadly I did not get to talk to the Prime Minister myself, she was in much demand and as you can imagine is very busy.

Closer to home things continue to progress. We appointed our catering manager and learning support workers, we put out the tender for all of the furniture for the new Academy, we also had appeals heard for students who were unsuccessful in coming to us. More planning was done for our induction day and for staff induction, we have started rewriting our prospectus for next years students and I hope to begin a round of primary visits before the end of term.

Finally the senior staff all went out for a team building axe throwing session! Fortunately we all came away with no injuries.

I wish you all a good weekend.

George Faux

Principal