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SICA NEWS SPECIAL: The Lewes School Update Lewes New School News 3, 16 May 2000 We are now in the middle of the set up phase of the school, focusing on raising the remaining funds needed to buy the Pells site, defining roles in the team, creating the official structure of the school, finding the full complement of staff and defining our public image with a logo and initial prospectus. It's all happening, though not always in the most straightforward way... 1. Staffing As well as extensively networking, we advertised in the Times Education Supplement for all the main staff: head teacher, class teacher, nursery head, after school club leader and school secretary. The interest for these jobs was fairly active and our staffing team short listed a number of people for most of these roles, including two Subud members (one of whom is applying for the headship). Louisa Pickering has been doing a great job coordinating interviews and communicating applicants. Interviews will take place in the week of the 21st May and we'll know who the core team of the school is soon afterwards. The interviews for school secretary/administrator teaching assistants and caretaker will be carried out once the head is appointed. The core staff will then have their work cut out to start to create the vision or culture for the school by the time the doors open in September. 2. The building Contracts still have not been exchanged on the Pells property, though this is simply a matter of the solicitors requirements. This suits us, as the more money we have raised before we exchange contracts, the more confident we can be. An independent surveyor recently valued the property at £850,000 - £1 million pounds. 3. Fundraising Currently the project has been offered pledges totalling £530,000 towards the purchase price of £850,000. Most of this amount has come from three individuals, to whom we are incredibly grateful for their commitment and vision. This leaves £320,00 remaining to be raised. The fundraising team is now urgently seeking funds to secure the building. If you can help, now is the time. The funds could be in the form of donations or possibly loans, and the fundraising team is interested in negotiating the terms of such loans with individual donors. Please contact Daniela Bines on 01903 813504 or email dbines@globalnet.co.uk if you can help. Clearly, any repayments on loans, especially commercial loans, will have to come from the school fees and would reduce what we can offer to the children, and this is why we want to avoid taking out commercial loans, as this would be a heavy load for this educational project The Guerrand-Hermes Foundation for Peace has been actively supportive in paying nearly all our development costs to date, and will pay for the shortfall in income in the first three years of operation. This kind of commitment is so crucial to our charitable project. THANK YOU, GHF! We are also now seeking funding for the set up of the school, which amounts to £85,000. This includes furnishing and equipping the school, including library, gym, kitchen, office, all classrooms with the best possible materials. We aim for a good standard, as this will help attract our future families. For a breakdown of this list, please contact Daniela Bines. 4. Charitable status We have now been given official charitable status, after an assessment of our extensive application. This means donations to the school are tax deductible and the school can also claim the equivalent of 28% from the government for donations. 5. Publicity There is already a fair amount of interest from the Lewes community and further afield from parents wishing to send their children to the school, so a priority has been to produce information for prospective parents. We decided to do an initial prospectus for now, to people who enquire, with a full blown prospectus and publicity in the spring, once we have been in the school a while and are able to show parents around. David Anderson is working with Fredrik Lloyd on this. Laurence Lassalle, a commercial graphic designer in London, has designed a beautiful logo for us which encompases the 'freedom within security' brief he was given. That will be use on the school's letterheads and publicity. Once the head is appointed we'll probably hold a couple of open meetings for prospective parents, which will be publicised around Lewes. 6. The team Polly Skerratt, previously chair of Subud Britain's national executive and currently a government schools inspector and education advisor, is now chair of the governors until the school opens and we find a suitable person close at hand (she lives in the north of England). It's great to have her on board as she has loads of experience both with the structure and content of education. A number of people are moving to the Lewes area to be involved with the school, and two families moving in are planning to send their children there.
Stephanie Davies-Arai has started to actively work with the team on conflict resolution. She's also been developing some suggestions for conflict resolution in the school, and in the founding team, based on Teacher Effectiveness Training devised by Dr Thomas Gordon. This is a nonpower approach to conflict, whereby both parties' needs are met, and includes key areas such as 'problem ownership', 'active listening' and 'I messages'. As she says in her outline, 'Our no-lose method is based on shared problem-solving, which strengthens teacher-pupil relationships, and helps the children to develop responsibility and self-discipline, as well as providing them with the tools for lifelong peaceful conflict resolution.' 7. Finally If you can help with funding the school, or can offer support or ideas of any kind, please contact Miranda Wilson-Lassalle, the project manager, on tel 01273 472615 or email mirandawl@btinternet.com.
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