Welcome back!We did it!Thank you to all the children and parents for their valuable contributions and to our wonderful governors and staff; a fabulous team that has worked so hard to achieve academy status for our school.So what does that mean? if you want the legal stuff then follow the link: http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/typesofschools/academies For this school now: A small sum of money dedicated to rebranding – hence the new signs, decoration, gate etc. (more to come – watch this space). Freedom to innovate the curriculum to meet the needs of our children. The staff have had an amazing training session and are planning some really exciting additions to our curriculum for next year. Ability to pick and choose the goods, services and providers we use – this has made us the customer and allows us more negotiating power (particularly when partnered with other local academies). Opportunity to bid to central government for our Capital Maintenance needs. We are hopeful that this will allow us to effectively bid for school refurbishment and development projects (i.e. replacement of the annexe). It is early days yet, but anecdotally our initial funding agreement suggests we will be slightly better off, financially, as an academy. A new and powerful forum for reviewing the Lower/Primary status of the school.The general feeling in the staffroom is one of excitement. We want to embrace this opportunity for growth and development and build on the ‘Outstanding’ practice in school to make it quite ‘Exceptional’. Thank you all for your continued support of the school.Moya