Building work at new Windrush Primary School in Witney

Builders start work building on big building site.

It is not much of a story and certainly not one that I would expect any local newspaper to cover.

After all, building is what happens on building sites.

But the compound on the left as you drive into Witney’s Windrush Place estate is a little different and a little more newsworthy.

This is the site of Windrush Church of England Primary School, which is due to open in September 2021.

The school is going to be operated by River Learning Trust (RLT), a multi-academy trust of primaries and secondaries based in Oxfordshire, in partnership with the Oxford Diocesan Board of Education (ODBE).

It will be the first new primary in Witney for almost two decades and RLT, where I am in charge of school governance, is obviously excited to have been given the responsibility to open and run it.

As you would expect with a project as complex as a school, there are lots of different things to get right.

Read again: Work to begin on new Windrush Primary School in Witney

One of those things is making sure that the school is at the heart of the community.

It is perhaps a slightly intangible thing, but that doesn’t lessen its importance.

We want Windrush to be a hub for local people – listening to them and serving them.

In turn, we want those local people to take ownership of the school and have a stake in its success.

The best schools deliver in terms of academic outcomes and the development of children.

But the best schools also sit in communities that support and take pride in those achievements.

As part of this process of becoming that sort of school we are already reaching out to our local community, and we will be ramping this up over the coming weeks through social media and with information popped through doors and placed in the development’s showrooms.

We will also be holding virtual information events that form part of a consultation being staged as part of the process of opening the school.

These online events can be signed up for on our website, windrushschool.org

In the course of doing all of this we are hoping to find people who want to become directly involved with the school.

Obviously, we want local people to send their children to their local school, and already, we have had informal expressions of interest from local people wanting to work at the school.

But we also want to hear from people looking to become governors at the school.

Being a governor is hugely rewarding but it is especially exciting doing it at a brand new school and being able to take part in shaping that school.

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We are looking to hear from people who already have governance experience but also from people who perhaps have never been a governor before but have the business or professional skills that will allow the board to effectively scrutinise the school’s leadership.

All the new governors will receive training and support from the trust to enable them to be as effective as possible in their role.

You don’t have to have a direct family link to the school to take on the role (in fact, the more independent you are the better).

You just have to want to make a difference in your community.

With people on board who are motivated to do that, Windrush can become what all good schools are – places that serve their community and that are served by their community in return.