Sunday 15 May 2011

Further Ups and Downs in the Writing of a Free School Proposal.


This week, when not working on the day job, I have been driving round the East Anglian Countryside collecting names for the paperwork to set up a Company Limited by Guarantee.  Due to the approaching deadline the decision has been made to pay extra and use the fast track system for registering the Company.  This involves of course a higher fee, which would have been unnecessary had the DfE provided the Articles of Association at a much earlier point.  Was this perhaps another part of the strategy to discourage Special Free School Proposers?

We worked on the finance plan this weekend.  Various members of the team came up trumps providing information to assist us whilst the Company Secretary and I began inserting the figures, conducting the benchmarking exercise and working out the cost per pupil place.  Whilst doing this we discovered, when reviewing information provided at the SEN and Alternative Free School Proposers Event, that we also need to consult with the LA about the cost of placements.  This requirement is not set out in the DfE guidance or criteria, so yet again a case of the goal posts being very mobile indeed.   This discovery meant another email had to be sent off to the LA with yet another request for assistance.  It is just as well the LA is being very supportive of the proposal.

We have been blessed with support from the community, LA, schools and it is this that keeps me going when frustration and the huge amount of work gets the better of me.   I do feel though, as if I am becoming somewhat of a stalker and what is worse a stalker of those very people who are providing invaluable assistance.  Not only have I been pursing, with relentless persistence, the Trustees to sign the paperwork but also Officers of the LA have been the recipients of numerous demands for information and co-operation with aspects of the proposal.  This kind of behaviour is not normally the most effective strategy for winning friends and influencing people, so I hope they do have not only resilience but also a great deal of patience. 

The major proverbial spanner in the works this week has been the news that the building we had identified as the best option for the school and which has been available for the last 6 months, is going up for auction on Friday, just before the person from Partnership for Schools is due to come out to conduct a survey of the property.  The race is on therefore, to find another building option just in case the property we identified as our preferred option on the proposal disappears under the hammer.  Anyone know of a suitable building in Ipswich?

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