Our Training DayOur Eden Academy Training Day for all members of staff, across our 5 schools, is always a chance to get together and celebrate our hard work and achievements.

This year we were honoured to welcome to our humble stage, the charming Sons of Pitches, recent winners of BBC2’s The Naked Choir, hosted by Gareth Malone. We were wowed with their vocal gymnastics and got a chance to try out some A Capella ourselves through workshops that they ran for us.

We also got a chance to look at the developments that some of our pupils have made in their time at our schools. It was really especially encouraging for staff to see how some of their old pupils had settled in to other Academy schools!

And lastly we unveiled our new Eden Academy video which sits on our websites to give visitors a feel for what our school are like and how they are run. Please take a look for yourself (and thank you to all those parents, children and staff that were involved in the making of the film!).

Click to view the video »

HighlightsWe have had a fantastic year so far. Thanks to all our hard working and dedicated staff for creating fantastic, meaningful learning opportunities for our students.

• Many congratulations to Alexandra School who have just been awarded “outstanding” in every category – again!

• We are in the process of securing provision for our post-19 students by working with Orchard Hill - more news will follow in September

• Pentland Field School will shortly be opening their brand new sports hall, theatre and 2-storey state-of-the-art food tech, arts, drama and media studios

• Our Therapy Service is now headed up by three service managers, with specific experience and skills in Physical, Language and Communication and Arts therapies

We look forward to keeping you up to date with news every term.

Susan Douglas, CEO of the Eden Academy

Our family of schools

Alexandra School Grangewood School Moorcroft School Pentland Field School RNIB Sunshine House School

The Eden Academy

Fore Street, Eastcote, Pinner, Middlesex HA5 2JQ

T. 01895 676401 E. info@theedenacademy.co.uk

The Eden Academy

An Academy that places children at the heart of everything it does, a place where parents and carers can look to the future with optimism and confidence and where staff feel their skills and their careers are developed like nowhere else.

Susan Douglas, CEO of the Eden Academy

Spring 2016

The season at EdenChildren & young people at the core of all we do

Cash with a capital ‘C’Capital funding for all schools is now provided through the Education Funding Agency (EFA).

Each school can submit up to two capital bids in a year and these are assessed by the EFA. Succesful bids are announced in early April each year.

In 2015 Eden Academy was successful in securing capital funding for five bids, totalling £1.3m.

Alexandra School

Roof replacement £341,475

Boiler replacement £212,625

Grangewood School

Upgrade of heating pipework £200,812

Replacement of windows and doors £68,088

Moorcroft School

Boiler replacement £500,976

All projects have begun, most have finished and are running on-time and on budget!

Enrich. Develop. Educate. Nurture.

The season at Eden: Spring 2016

An interview with…Barry Nolan, our Chair of the Board of Directors has 30 years-experience at Barclays and currently heads up their Finance Real Estate’s London team.

How did Barry, with his commercial experience and strategic expertise, get involved with the Academy, and what are his thoughts on the role of Chair, our forthcoming challenges and how to make a good impression on a student?

What do you think makes a good Chair of the Board?

Oh, a good question. Well, the Board is there to ensure that the Academy and its schools deliver on their educational promises; it’s essential that the relationship between the Board and the Local Governing bodies is a strong one, so that all views and concerns are represented, decisions are reported and communication lines stay open.

I see my role as the Chair as supporting (and challenging!) the Principal, Chief Executive and Heads of School, as well as ensuring that I fully utilise the skills and experience of a very talented group of directors.

What do you think is our biggest challenge at the Academy?

Having established ourselves as one of the leading multi academy trusts of special schools, I think our challenge now is to take it to the next level! I’m fanatical about ensuring that we innovate rather than just follow the tried and tested paths. This however, does not mean that we cannot learn from the best of the other multi-academy trusts. We are a huge influence in Harrow and Hillingdon and I want to see this influence continuing to spread. Some of the work that John and Susan are doing in this area has been truly ground-breaking.

Anticipating the needs of the current and future Eden pupils is something we have to work very hard at. The SEN world is constantly evolving and we need to ensure that we are well-positioned to respond to

these changes. Undoubtedly the current political and economic environment will continue to be a challenge, so we’re fortunate to have such a gifted leadership team to steer us through these choppy waters.

What teacher in school-life made the most impression on you, and why?

An easy choice. Mrs Lynch, my O’Level maths teacher. As a teenager, I went through a rebellious stage, losing interest in school and could quite easily have gone off the rails. She saw something in me, that none of my other teachers could. She was firm but fair, encouraging and engaging, and under her guidance I did very well in my exams. She set me on the right path and everything I have achieved in life, wouldn’t have happened without her. 30 years after leaving school, she continues to inspire!

How did you originally get involved with the Eden Academy?

One of my 3 sons, Michael is on the autistic spectrum and spent 7 very happy years at Alexandra School.

I wanted to get involved in his school life, so I applied for a Parent Governor role and ended up chairing the Governing Body for a number of years.

When Michael left, it felt like the right time to step down as Chair, but at that time we started to investigate becoming an academy. Having spoken with John and Susan, it became clear that Eden would be a great fit for Alexandra and I was delighted to be asked to be the Alexandra representative on the board.

Enrich. Develop. Educate. Nurture.

The season at Eden: Spring 2016

“We declare our library open!”Our brand new Eden Academy Resource Library is now open and we have over 150 resources, available for all our pupils to borrow to use at home with their families.

Thank youWe are very grateful for the £1,500 raised by Orchyd and the £15,000 grant, which was kindly given to us by the Hillingdon Community Trust. Both these donations not only helped us stock resources, but enabled us to convert a garage at Moorcroft School into a fully-functional library space, where we now have height-adjustable tables for students with wheelchairs, as well as an interactive floor rug and sensory and OT resources to support our older students with sensory processing difficulties.

• Staff at RNIB Sunshine House School, part of our family of schools, have recently added VisPacs to the library; a set of resources specifically for students with visual impairment

• We have included small feedback books that go home with the borrowed

resource, so that parents and carers can comment on how their child used the resource, as well as make any suggestions for resources for us to purchase for the future

• Moorcroft School, another school in the Academy, held an Open Day for parents of all of our Eden schools. It was well-received and attended by many parents.

• Our resource library also hosts multi-professional meetings, parent coffee groups and parent workshops. Long term we would like to fit a projector and screen to the room to support the running of some of these sessions.

• Our resource library catalogue has details of all of the resources available to borrow and a copy of it sits in each of our Academy schools, as well as on each school website

Library resourcesWe have a range of resources, from literacy toys to sensory equipment, including:

• Sensory

• Tactile

• Visual

• Imaginative Play

• Outdoor

• Auditory

• Audio-visual

• Numeracy

• Literacy

• Language

Our Outstanding Bright-spark of EducationJohn Ayres, our Principal at the Eden Academy was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours List for Services to Education.

In his career spanning 30 years, John began as Headteacher at Grangewood School in 1993. He is one of the first National Leaders of Education and has worked both nationally and internationally to promote the development of more inclusive schooling

At hearing the news, John said “I think an honour of this nature is a testament to the hard work and commitment of the whole of the Eden Academy team.”

Thank you John, you Overwhelmingly Bring Energy to the Academy!

Further informationFurther information - If you would like any further information about our Resource Library, or any of the other services provided, then please contact our family services team, either by emailing familyservices@theedenacademy.co.uk or by getting in touch with your school’s co-ordinator.

Enrich. Develop. Educate. Nurture.

The season at Eden: Spring 2016

International workSo why do we get involved in international work?As many of you will know, the Eden Academy has been involved with various types of international work for many years. But why is it important given how much else there is to do?

Unlike any other time in the history of education in the UK we are going through rapid and dynamic change. Our education system is reforming and reshaping from a traditional centrally based structure to one where the requirement is for the system to develop and lead itself. Academies, free schools, teaching schools, chains, federations, alliances and sponsorships are all words that have become part of our core vocabulary where once they would have been unheard of in educational circles and all of this is happening in a world that is increasingly globalised and where the speed of change and communication exchange is ever more rapid.

To respond to this new and dynamic context we need to be open and aware both intellectually and culturally to how the world is changing. We need to be open to new ideas and new ways of thinking so that our young people are exposed to the best and most creative ways forward our collective minds can offer. We also need to be open to challenge and question the

ways we have adopted over the years and be prepared to embrace new pedagogies and structures.

This is what the international dimension brings. An opportunity to discuss and debate with colleagues from across the globe what is one of the most truly universal of themes – education. The delivering of training in places like Bangladesh and Beirut cannot be based on a ‘do it like we do’ approach. It requires a much deeper thinking about what are the philosophies and values that underpin our approach. In thinking about these philosophies and values we can refine and develop what we do for the young people at the Eden Academy. The visits of Singaporean principals to the UK, to use another example, and the questions they ask that are rooted in one of the most successful education systems in the world make us re-examine why and what we do,

Visits to the Academy from our colleagues from the Middle East, North Africa or East Asia highlight the great work that is being done and reinforce for

our staff their undoubted skill sets and their commitment to meeting the needs of young people with special needs. Offering the opportunity for our staff to talk about their work to colleagues from overseas enables them to articulate and reinforce their passion for the work.

International exchanges offer our pupils a unique opportunity to experience something that is truly life enhancing. Many of our families simply do not have the financial or emotional resources to take their children away to places like Malta. What our young people learn from being in a location that has a different language, climate, culture, colour and feeling is immeasurable.

And there are even financial benefits for the Academy. During the 2014-15, we generated more than £17,000 of income from the various international initiatives in which we were involved.

So now we need to ensure that as many staff as possible benefit from the exposure to our international work and we will be actively looking for opportunities to do this. This could be by direct involvement in the delivery of training or by having the opportunity to meet and host overseas delegations.

John and Susan facilitate the Building Educational Bridges programme which is an exchange programme for Singaporean and English headteachers (funded by the DfE

and the British Council). The Secretary of State requested this year that the focus of this programme be on mathematics teaching and the group reported to Nick Gibb on 20th April.