The Panel welcomed Sir Daniel Moynihan, CEO of Harris Federation, Tom Webster  - Commercial Director Harris Federation and Joanne Larizadeh – Principal of Harris Academy Wimbledon to the meeting

The panel noted the briefing report in the agenda.

Sir Daniel addressed the Panel and spoke about the achievements made by the Harris Federation, including:

·         Harris Federation has 47 academy schools, all in London, with 30,000 students and 4,000 teachers

·         Harris Schools are generally in disadvantaged areas, many were previously in Special Measures. The national average is for 20% of Schools to achieve OFSTED outstanding . 78% of Harris Schools are outstanding and the rest are good – including all in Merton

·         Harris Federation is highly effective in generating social mobility, with high performance by children who receive free school meals and by children from ethnic minorities.

·         The Harris model is that of a central team which ensures consistency and is strong on systems and data.

·         Harris Merton has just expanded to 8 forms

·         Harris Morden was judged Outstanding by OFSTED last year, with GCSEs well above average, it was 2^nd in borough this year

·         Harris Primary – outstanding last year, 86% met expectations in KS2 SATs and was 5^th in borough

·         Harris Wimbledon – new build finished in 2020 will have 1150 pupils with 250 in the sixth Form

Sir Daniel answered Panel Member Questions and made points including:

·         Harris Federation is not focussed on growth, we are most concerned about standards

·         We are a Federation not a chain – we don’t want every school to be the same, we want Heads to adapt to the local needs. A good education looks different in different areas

·         We do have counsellors in all schools but our evidence suggests that there is greatest need in 6^th form, and so we have put money into a new scheme across our sixth forms

·         Our Exclusions are relatively low, but they are sometimes necessary. We do have our own Pupil Referral Unit that has achieved good results. For pupils who are permanently excluded the local Authority must arrange suitable full-time education to begin no later than the 6^th day.

·         Performance of SEN pupils is one of the excellent areas across Harris Schools – our performance by SEN pupils is above average and one of our best performing groups – we invest a great deal

·         We have always had a good relationship with Merton. We could do more work with Merton – we have large teacher training and teacher development program – happy to do more work with Merton in these areas.

·         Harris Federation does manage School funding monies, some Schools get more money than others, and if a school has a need we can fund this  e.g. when we opened Harris Morden we invested  £½ million in new IT.

·         We are good at managing our budget and ensure tight financial controls. We employ high quality business managers who centrally manage the budget. We are externally audited

·         We are very successful at external fundraising and use this extra money for special projects such as 1:1 work at key stage 4, for bursaries for children from low income families to go to university, and extra teachers in year 6. Money raised by direct approaches to charitable trusts and City organisations who are interested in supporting us

·         We have huge focus on social mobility as many children are capable of going to university but don’t believe that they can. We also send children on to higher apprenticeships

·         90% of our schools operate with a surplus – but it may not be a large surplus.

The Panel thanked Sir Daniel for attending the meeting and Jo Larizadeh, Principal, for the visit to Harris Wimbledon the previous day.