Barking Riverside executive head’s final plea to parents

Roger Leighton, the executive head of Barking Riverside, urges parents to pick the school for their children.

I would like to thank the readers of the Post for all the support they have shown for our free school bid – we have had a really positive response through our website.

There’s still time to make a difference though, particularly if you are a parent of a primary school child in Year 4 or 5 – just a few clicks will help us get closer to our target.

We are now putting the finishing touches to our bid document, which has to be sent to the government by Friday. The first stage in the judging process will be to find out if we have been short-listed – we should know by mid-April.

If we get over that hurdle we will be called to an interview in May.

Final decisions should be known by the summer.

We will be doing everything in our power to get the right result – because we know what a difference it will make to the young people of Barking Riverside and Thames View.

The community desperately needs its own secondary school, to provide high-quality education for all its young people, and a successful free school bid would speed up the planning and funding of the permanent buildings the school will need.

So, a big thank you to the Post for its fantastic campaign – and let’s hope we’ll all be celebrating success in the summer.