A 40-mile round trip to see an academy run by Greenwood Dale Foundation Trust has given the Parents and Friends of Al-Madinah fresh hope for the future of their ailing school.
Barry Day, the trust’s chief executive, invited the group to visit his flagship academy in Nottingham.
The invitation came after he met informally with a small group of parents and teachers last week to discuss how the school could be turned around.
Mr Day was invited by the Government to become involved with the school three weeks ago.
This was after it was placed in special measures in October and the Al-Madinah trustees failed to come up with an action plan that satisfied Schools Minister Lord Nash.
Mr Day has already said he would not be prepared to take the Derby school into his trust because it has financial problems.
The trust has a £100 million turnover and already runs 22 academies, including the City of Derby Academy, in Sinfin.
But he has produced action and leadership plans that have been accepted by Ofsted – the Office for Standards in Education.
And he is willing to allow some of his senior staff to work with the school in the next few months to bring about change.
It is a mammoth task after the first inspection, in October, produced comments from Ofsted saying that the school was “inadequate”, “dysfunctional” and “in chaos”.
This was followed by a monitoring visit last week, which indicated no progress had been made and that the school had gone backwards.
But Mr Day has assured parents that he will do his best to get the school, which has sites in Friar Gate and Nelson Street, to become an institution that the community can be proud of.
He also assured staff that they would get the resources and training they needed to be able to teach properly.
He met the parents and staff at Nottingham Academy, which is a 2,400-pupil school teaching three-to-18-year-olds.
Accompanying them were two teachers from the Quranic and Islamic studies department of Al-Madinah School, which Mr Day feels should take an active part in the pastoral care of pupils and is “fundamentally important” to the future of the school.
The huge academy building, which was built and opened in 2011 at a cost of £50 million, drew together several failing schools from an area in the south-eastern area of Nottingham, turning around education standards in the process.
Aftab Rehman, a member of the Parents and Friends of Al-Madinah group, has two daughters at the Derby school.
He said: “If something similar could be achieved at Al-Madinah, using elements of the academy’s best practice, then this would be something that we’d be pleased with.
“The purpose of the visit was to get first-hand experience and a view of what work has been undertaken by Mr Day and his team in one of their schools.
“We had the opportunity to meet some of the senior team from the academy and they all came across as being highly professional, with many having worked at outstanding schools previously.”
The visiting group was impressed by the layout of the school and visited a number of classes while learning was taking place.
Mr Rehman said: “The children were well behaved, were looking smart and seemed to be enjoying their learning.
“It was clear that the school had created a good environment and had good systems in place in order for learning at a high level to take place.”
In its most recent Ofsted inspection, the academy was rated “outstanding” for its leadership and most pupils of all ages are achieving results above the national average.
Parents and members of staff from Al-Madinah are anxious to emphasise that the school can improve – but patience will be required.
Almost 50 pupils have left the school since the original Ofsted report was published, along with large numbers of staff.
The Al-Madinah trustees – Shazia Parveen and Shahban Rehmat – have indicated they will leave at the end of next month, meaning that the school will be looking to appoint new trust management from February.
Meanwhile, Mr Day is drawing up plans for the primary department in Norman House, Friar Gate, to relocate to Midland House, in Nelson Street.
A playground would need to be created and smaller toilets installed.
He said: “The situation regarding the budget at Al-Madinah is not known and so that needs to be sorted out.
“I believe that a firm of accountants will be brought in by the Department for Education.
“In the meantime, I am telling the DfE what needs to be done so that contractors can be procured correctly to carry out the work that is needed to bring the two schools on to one site.”
Mr Day, who is due to hold further meetings this week with staff at the school, said its staff need to work with his own to draw up plans and that he is prepared to support the parents’ wishes.
He said: “It is important that the community, including parents, take charge of what is happening and that the leadership and governance is influenced by them.
“Staff need to be playing an active part in the organisation of the school.
“They need to be involved throughout rather than being a last port of call.
“We will be there beside them throughout and will only go away when Lord Nash says the school is good enough and you [the staff and parents] are ready for us to go away.
“Lord Nash has told me personally that he wants this school to succeed and we are really glad to be involved in working to this end.”
FUTURE IS IN THE HANDS OF MANY
The future of Al-Madinah School is in the hands of several groups of people.
Firstly, it is down to the Government ultimately to decide whether the school can carry on or to cut its funding, forcing closure.
As a free school, Al-Madinah is only answerable to the Government and Ofsted – Office for Standards in Education – and gets its funding, which is believed to have been £1.4 million so far, direct from the Education Funding Agency.
The application to set up the school was made by the trustees – Shazia Parveen, Shahban Rehmat and Ziad Amjad – in 2011 and Andrew Cutts-McKay was appointed as head teacher but left in July this year.
Its two reports from Ofsted – a full inspection and a monitoring visit – have been damning and a great deal of work will be needed to convince the Government that the school is capable of doing better.
Last week, the Government used its power to close a free school when The Discovery School in West Sussex had its funding withdrawn because of poor standards. It will close at Easter.
Ofsted can also close a school if it feels health and safety are compromised.
Al-Madinah School was closed for three days on the first day of its inspection in October, while CRB checks were carried out on staff and the building’s security was verified, after which it was allowed to reopen.
The interim head, Dr Stuart Wilson, who was brought in for three months from September to December this year, went off sick just days before the Ofsted monitoring visit took place.
Deputy headteacher Safeena Higgins stepped up to take his place, otherwise the monitoring visit could not have taken place and the school could have been closed.
Barry Day, chief executive of the Greenwood Dale Foundation Trust, has been asked to step in and help the school to escape special measures.
He has pledged to help where he can but has declined to make it part of his 22-academy empire.
And finally, the staff and parents have their role to play. If many more children leave, then the school could become unviable.
If staff continue to depart and the place is populated with supply staff, then this will prevent stability in any future plan which is being drawn up.
Parents and other interested members of the community have a chance to bring about real change, especially if they become involved in the school’s governing body, which should be possible when the current trustees leave at the end of January, as ordered by the Government last month.