Hello & Welcome...

The Heyfordian School Trust would like to thank you for visiting our new blog. We hope this will be an easy way for parents, carers and community members to keep updated with the progress we are making with the Heyford Park Free School. We also hope that because a blog is more interactive, more parents/carers and community members will ask us questions via the blog and there can be more direct engagement.

We are planning to update this blog at least once every week so please expect a new post every Friday (and maybe more often if we have been very busy and we have lots to tell you about).

This week

As those who have been following the school will know, we have now submitted our proposal for the Heyford Park Free School to the Department for Education. Whilst we wait to hear whether we have been successful in reaching the next round and achieving an interview with officials from the Department, we are now trying to raise as much support as possible.

This has not only involved meeting more parents and residents who want to contribute to The Heyfordian School Trust, but talking to our local councillors and hearing their views and opinions on the school we are proposing.

Indeed, on Wednesday both Mike Kerford-Byrnes and James Macnamara met with two representatives from The Heyfordian School Trust to discuss the school. James and Mike represent the Astons and the Heyfords (which is the electoral ward in which Heyford Park falls) at Cherwell District Council, ensuring their endorsement of the school is imperative. They were both incredibly enthused at the prospect of a high performing, rurally located school here at Heyford Park, and have both pledged their support and commitment to our proposal.

James has been a local councillor for this ward for many years now, and he was able to provide in depth insight into how the local schools here perform. Certainly, both James and Mike interact with local people on a daily basis and they agree parents are desperate to see an additional schooling choice in the area due to the inconsistency of standards seen at secondary level in Bicester. They both fully believe the state educational provision in Bicester is not entirely up to scratch, and thus a completely alternative model, like the Heyford Park Free School, would be a welcome and much needed addition. They are also passionate about the proposal due to the community facilities that the Heyford Park Free School would inject into the area if successful. Again, they hear people from the area talking of the frustration of always having to travel into Bicester to access amenities such as sports facilities and community events. Both Mike and James are writing letters to Oxfordshire County Council to make their support clear.

We are also presenting our overwhelming demand figures to our local MP Tony Baldry to attain his endorsement. We are hoping he will be prepared to write to the Department for Education on our behalf and we will be able to give you all an update on this next week.

Similarly, we have prepared a letter of support that has been sent to those on our mailing list. This letter has a template so that parents and carers can amend the content in order to personalise before sending off to their local councillor or the Oxfordshire County Council Officials for Education. We have had acknowledgements from David Robertson, the deputy of OCC, and Keith Mitchell who currently leads the Council. We hope this is positive and it means those at the top understand what we are trying to achieve.

We will let you know next week how we are getting on with this, but we hope you are prepared to help us ensure those in the know are aware of our efforts and how much support there is in the area for the Heyford Park Free School.

Thanks for reading and if you would like to find out how you can help, please email s.mccready@dorchestergrp.com