Final Word from Sylvia McNamara, CEO

December 19th, 2017

Dear All

This is my last  news letter before I disappear into the world of City of London Guiding alongside some  Interim Education work.

It has been an absolute pleasure working with you all and I sincerely wish you all the very  best for 2018.

Looking back over the year there have been some excellent results in terms of attainment progress and Ofsted results for many of the schools we work with across a number of Boroughs. Croydon has seen its Key Stage 2 results move towards the middle of the pan on the ‘London Leader Board’ which is very pleasing and well deserved.

Looking forward we can expect even more changes on the assessment front especially at KS4 and 5, although we may see the markers be less stringent on the SPAG test at KS2. The comparative judgement (Sharing Data) ARK project looks really useful.

Safeguarding continues to hinder some schools and settings, so we do strongly recommend that your New Year’s resolution is to ensure that all your policies, processes and above all, practices, are reviewed and monitored, not just so that you are Ofsted ready, but most importantly to ensure that all of our children are as safe as we can make them.

The tightening of budgets is hitting many areas of education including Special Needs. If this is affecting your school we recommend that you talk through your concerns with your Educational Psychologist and ensure that your SENCO attends our popular SENCO network briefing sessions.

As ever, we are keen to hear your feedback on all of our services and our account manager, Tamsin Mills, will happily come and talk to you about any one or all of them.

It remains for me to wish you a very Happy and restful Christmas and a Brilliant 2018.

I hope our paths continue to cross.

Sylvia