It seems very modern to be compiling a “blog” rather than thinking about a newsletter. I confess it was only very recently I came to realise that “blog” was a contraction of “web log”.
Last week we received several visitors, including Dave Hill, the newly appointed Executive Director of Croydon’s Children, Young People and Learners (CYPL) department and Brett Wigdortz the founder and CEO of Teach First.
Among the interesting things that came out of the meeting with Dave Hill was confirmation that we are top of the list for having a brand new school built on our current site. There is no definite timescale for this but it will probably be within the next three or four years, subject to Croydon receiving the funding from central government.
On a lighter note, some of you will remember the “glam rock” group Slade. They had hit singles in the early 1970s with songs such as “Coz I Luv You”, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now”, “Cum On Feel The Noize” and the 1973 Christmas number one “Merry Xmas Everybody”. The name of the lead guitarist in Slade was Dave Hill. We hope our new Executive Director is not the same person, or at least that his spelling has improved!
Teach First was founded in 2002 and is a groundbreaking business-educational partnership, which attracts the best graduates to work as inspirational, effective teachers in some of the UK’s most challenged secondary schools in London, the North West and the Midlands.
We have worked in partnership with Teach First since its launch and have benefited hugely from the regular stream of excellent teachers it provides.
It was an honour therefore to have the founder of Teach First visit our school and teach a lesson for the first time to a year 9 group. I believe Brett proved to be an inspirational teacher and that his bribes of tee-shirts, mugs and other prizes proved very effective. He was of course very complimentary about our pupils and also about the training and support received by our Teach First teachers.