On Tuesday 7 January Rob Wilson MP attended The Heights’ information event which took place in Mapledurham Pavilion. The new primary is set to open in September under the free school movement and will accommodate two reception classes of 25 each. A consultation will kick off in May to gauge whether to open one class each in Years 1 and 3 which would take the total number of pupils to 100 for the coming academic year.
At the meeting Rob said “What is very important to me as a local MP is the quality of education provided in our schools and I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that the quality of education at The Heights primary school will be outstanding.
“I would also like to offer some reassurance about free schools as I know some people are worried that they are something a little bit new. Free schools are out-performing local education authority schools at the moment. It is a small sample as yet as there are only about 100 at the moment with more coming on-stream, but they are doing very well with most either good or outstanding, so parents should have no worries about being part of the free school movement.
“There are also some concerns about setting up in temporary buildings, but although not ideal, it is not unusual for children to be in temporary buildings. Many children in Reading are currently in what would be called temporary accommodation, ‘terrapins’ as we used to call them in my day when I was at school. That has happened throughout our educational history, so we should not be worried if there is a single year or so in temporary accommodation as the main priority is that The Heights provides a high quality education for our children.
“Finally I would just like to add my thanks to the team who have put this together. It has taken an enormous amount of work to date to get this far, but it just shows how positive the whole free school movement is to get this sort of grass roots growth of outstanding schools in local communities and I will be supporting The Heights’ team every step of the way to get this school open and get the best possible location for this school.”
Further information about The Heights is available at : http://theheightsprimary.co.uk/