I hear that the proposed Gladstone School is still opening to open at a site in Brent in September 2015. They appear to have abandoned their efforts to build on part of Gladstone Park, which is sensible. Building on Metropolitan Open Space is almost impossible.
Their web site lists three consultation events _ at Child's Hill Library, the Tricycle Theatre and The Grange, Neasden _ which gives a kind of Bermuda Triangle as to where the school might actually go. The reference to a Foundation Site appears to suggest the first site will be temporary.
Brent actually passed a policy about Free Schools some time ago. As I recall, it was a hotly debated subject at the time, although it has had little attention since. The agreement at time was to lay down a number of conditions that Brent wanted from a free school partner, such as trained staff, adequate nutrition levels in food and so on. Not rocket science perhaps, but important to the success of any school. These did not appear to feature in the "rescue" of Copland Community School. I hope that they are not overlooked when it comes to another school.
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Gladstone School has some sort of sweet spot for the Tricycle Theatre, indeed when they were running out of time for finding a site to open in 2014 there were some updates to their website which mentioned they may use the Tricycle for temporary classrooms for a few weeks at the beginning of the year. They also held a summer camp (recruitment drive) in the summer of 2014 for children entering Year 6.
I assume that the meeting at Childs Hill Library was because of its proximity of the rich pickings of the 4 nearby primary schools with a CofE primary being just next door. Just down the road from Childs Hill Library is the Catholic school where the couple who founded Gladstone School send their own children.
Since September 2014, Gladstone School has continually said that a site announcement is due any day. Hopefully, all the days will pass and no site will be found for them.
Paul Phillips, their principal designate, still works with the failing AET chain in curriculum leadership. In March 2014 AET were barred by the DfE from taking on more academies but, clearly, those in curriculum leadership are welcome to moonlight with a new free school on the side. Mr. Phillips was appointed by Gladstone School on 1/1/14 so he's now been employed in a role advertised at £95K plus and has yet to help educate a single child.
Curriculum is something of an interesting topic with Gladstone School, in it's early campaign and even through approval from the DfE, they were peddling their own home-brewed curriculum. Jim Gatten, one of the founders, along with this wife, Maria Evans Chair of Governors at Gladstone, had failed to sell a curriculum Jim wrote cleverly named Do It....Write! Gladstone School was to use this curriculum and, who knows, maybe sell it on the AET or hope for a foothold in the free school curriculum market. When it became exposed locally, Gladstone School immediately responded by saying that they had previously decided it was a conflict of interest and will not use the Do It....Write curriculum. They are now developing a "London-based curriculum" and with all the transparency of a dirty goldfish bowl, it is not clear if Jim and Maria will personally profit from it.
In the year ending 2013, Gladstone had spent a massive £77K and labelled £74K of it as "charitable expenses" in their annual accounts. This is before the hiring of the head and all site finding expenses would have been covered by the EFA.
All of this brings no good reason why Gladstone School should open in Brent or anywhere. Trust was broken early on when they tried to build on Metropolitan Open Lane, transparency is sorely lacking and there is no clear benefit to opening this school.
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