We recently attended a meeting with the Department for Education (DfE) in Sheffield in order for them to assess our ‘readiness to open’ as part of their review of new schools. The DfE panel consisted of 9 officials who represented areas related to main priorities linked to new schools: ‘Outcomes for children and learners’, ‘Quality of Teaching and Learning’, ‘Behaviour and Safety’, ‘Quality of Leadership and Management’, ‘Pupil recruitment and financial viability’, and ‘Site and buildings’.
The following also attended in order to answer various questions from the panel: Gwyn Ap Harri (Chief Executive of the Organisation), Andy Sprakes (Executive Principal) Stephen Bielby (Chair of the XP Trust) and Liam Scully (Chair of Governors for XP East).
I’ll be honest and say that this was a rigorous and testing process, but we were confident that we had everything in place in readiness for opening. The meeting ended with a very positive summary from the presiding DfE official, and explained that we would be ‘RAG-rated’ (red – concern, amber – some progress , green – positive) on the aspects that were being scrutinised and that a report would be sent to us in due course.
The video below shows a brief overview of the events that took place.
UPDATE: We are delighted to announced that we were RAG-rated as Green in every single category! This means that the DfE have no concerns about XP East’s opening for September 2017.
Next milestone – New staff Induction 05.06.17