Given the Easter break, the Bank Holiday weekend and an unusually short half term, it seems very recent that our last edition of Foundation News went out. However, as ever, a great deal of activity has taken place which is included in this issue.
One of the three pillars of the Foundation’s strategy, alongside learning and working with us, is partnering. These are our attempts to have a positive impact beyond our group of schools both regionally and nationally, and to benefit from others’ support and expertise. Julie Waddington’s appointment as a DfE RISE Advisor mentioned in detail elsewhere is a perfect example of this, as was the hosting of a Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce meeting at King Edward’s School and King Edward VI High School for Girls. Links with businesses can make a great difference to pupils and all our schools make efforts in this regard. Particularly important have been the relationships that King Edward VI Balaam Wood Academy has made with Birmingham City FC and Bloor Homes to secure the first BCFC academy at the school and a sensory garden for pupils with SEND. Likewise, King Edward VI Sheldon Heath Academy’s engagement with the Rigby Foundation is due to have a positive effect on its pupils.
We often talk about our mix of schools as being something noteworthy, and our model is indeed of interest to others. Recently, our Chief Finance Officer, Greg Langston, and I met governors and headteachers of a group of state schools in Warwick and Coventry who are due to join a new multi-academy trust sponsored by the Warwick Schools Foundation based very much on the way in which we operate. Also, I was pleased to be invited to the HMC conference to describe how our state and independent schools work in partnership. There has been a lot of talk recently about the government’s focus on the 93% of pupils who attend state schools. I think it a very positive statement to say that our Foundation cares for the 100%.
Closer to home, I have been enjoying attending each of our schools to deliver assemblies about the Foundation’s values and, in one or two cases, to meet pupils afterwards. As a teacher and school leader, assemblies come naturally, but I will confess to a little trepidation in doing the first few being somewhat out of practice. However, I was welcomed by very attentive pupils who engaged with my questions and it has been a very enjoyable experience.
Finally, I am writing this in the week that we have marked the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe. I am of a generation whose grandparents experienced the Second World War first hand (and indeed had childhood memories of the First World War) and was brought up with their stories and memories. As their generation has passed and ours becomes older, I feel a responsibility to continue to pass on those stories as part of our collective, national memory, and I am sure many others do too, particularly in an uncertain world. Our Foundation value of care is all the more pertinent in this context.
