Every Friday – as many of you know – I visit a host of businesses, hold surgeries, as well as go to a range of community groups and schools/colleges across the Wells constituency.
Across the patch, we have some brilliant institutions and I want to just mention Whitstone School in Shepton Mallet and Strode College in Street.
I have visited them in the past few weeks, and both are under relatively new leadership.
Whitstone has just been rated Good in its latest Ofsted and this achievement should not be underestimated – especially with the challenges of the past few years. There were elements which were close to Outstanding and having walked around the school with students, I can see the positive feeling is continuing to grow around Shepton Mallet. A good school in a town can really impact the feel of residents.
I was also very pleased to speak with John Revill, who is newly in post as Principal at Strode College. The college was one of the first T-Level programme and have some incredible facilities for practical study and John is working extremely hard to support students and staff.
I am looking forward to seeing how these qualifications progress and the impact they have on employment. This is an exciting time for education in Somerset and I am looking forward to visiting more schools before they break up for the summer.
