“Close the doors they’re coming through the windows” is a once popular expression which seems to derive from a hit song of the 1950s by a group called the Stargazers. It conveys the impression of chaos, with too many things happening simultaneously.
The week beginning Monday 2 March saw the school scheduled to receive no less than four major visits from members of the educational establishment.
On Monday we hosted Mandy Miller and Danny Sullivan who both have key responsibilities for teaching and learning in Croydon’s department for Children, Young People and Learners (CYPL). They are undertaking “familiarisation” visits to all the borough’s secondary schools. While here they saw a broad range of lessons covering all the age groups and a cross section of curriculum areas.
I am sure they will have left with a very positive opinion about the quality of both “teachers and learners” and “teaching and learning”. They were understandably less enthusiastic about the design of our buildings!
After school on Monday we received George Gyte (London Challenge), John McDermott (Education London) and John Chambers (Head of Secondary Education in Croydon). A very positive discussion led to our being able to broker some additional support for our pupils in years 10 and 11 as they prepare for their GCSE examinations. More information will be made available as this project develops but it will provide another strand of input to ensure that our pupils achieve the very best possible results.
On Wednesday, Councillor Tim Pollard visited the school. Councillor Pollard is the Cabinet Member for Children, Young People & Learners, ie, the lead politician for education in Croydon, as well as Deputy Leader of the Council. Being relatively new to his post he is visiting all the borough’s schools and we were fortunate to have been near the top of his list.
This represented a good opportunity to have an exchange of views about the direction education is taking in Croydon and how schools may be able to influence some of the decision making.
Councillor Pollard was as intrigued as our earlier visitors by some of the building’s rather eccentric design features! Narrow corridors, no first floor corridor at all, staircases leading to miniscule landings, the open plan language and communication area and the accompanying matchbox sized classrooms were all noted. Let’s hope our new school, whenever it is built, will have rather more appealing qualities.
This leads neatly to Friday’s scheduled visitors who represent Croydon’s “Building Schools for the Future” (BSF) team. BSF is likely to bring £350 million to Croydon to improve school facilities. By way of inspiring confidence however we were contacted on Thursday to move the meeting to Thursday 26 March! Nationally, the BSF programme is behind schedule.