My first meeting with the New School Network

As part of making the decision to see if I can take this school idea forward, I have contacted some people who have experience with this process. So far the education community have all been really helpful and supportive. All of the people I spoke to gave me the same advice, get in touch with the New Schools Network, which was good as I had already booked myself on to an introductory morning at their London offices.

They are the charity that support groups through the free school application process. I was really excited about the meeting.

I found my way to their offices a few minutes before the meeting was about to start. Being there on my own I must have looked slightly awkward while pouring my glass of water, so one of the NSN staff took pity on me and came to chat. All the staff are young and attractive, definitely the face of free schools.

The day started with all the visitors together and an introduction what the NSN do. It was interesting seeing the other prospective applicants, it was mainly mainstream, but there was also Alternative provision and Special school applicants there too. Also interesting that of the 5 mainstream schools, 3 were specific community oriented, Greek, Turkish and Russian.

For the rest of the session we were divided up by the type of school we were hoping to open, and then talked through the first steps of defining the schools vision, building the team and gathering evidence of demand.

It was very helpful and reassuring to know that there are people that you can go to to answer any questions that arise. I have the feeling that once you are involved in the process there will be many many questions arising!