An Outstanding Journey: Sometimes it’s okay to be proud

When you look up the definition of the word 'proud' in a dictionary, you get something like this:

A feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated...

It's not terribly British to feel proud, and sayings such as "pride comes before a fall" and pride being one of the seven deadly sins don't help.

But I feel proud today. Today, Ofsted (the UK schools inspector and regulator) made public their report on the One Degree Academy, the school of which I am the Founding Chair of Governors. Below is the story of the ten year journey that got us to this point.

The promise

One evening in London in 2009, I was invited to an event at Channel 4 TV but had to be persuaded to go as I wasn’t feeling very sociable. That was when I met Adnan Jaffery, a 29 year old Citi banking director who wanted to change the world for the better. I didn't realise that this charismatic cheeky chap would end up changing my life so much. 

We became very close friends very quickly. About a year after we met, he became ill. In December 2010 I was in his hospital room, and he asked me to walk over and hold his hand. He wanted me to promise him two things. 

One, would I take over the mentoring charity he'd started for disadvantaged 16 year old high school students to coach them to pass their exams. He called it One Degree mentoring because even small interventions such as a few days of weekend mentoring can massively change the future direction of young people's lives. I said, "I will, but you'll get better soon, so I won't need to."

Two, would I open a "free school", an initiative by the UK government to get innovation into schools by allowing "anyone" to set up a new non-profit school. He wanted the new school to be called the One Degree Academy, aimed at the same kind of children who didn't have the same opportunities growing up that he had. I said, "I can't - I don't know anything about schools, I don't know anyone who is a teacher, an academic or anyone in government. I can't possibly promise that I can do that." He then said "well, will you at least try?", and I replied with "okay."

A few days later, Adnan died of a rare form of cancer. 

One Degree Mentoring

At his wake a few weeks later, I recounted my promise to a group of his friends. A few agreed to help continue the One Degree Mentoring programme, and it still exists today; with a passionate CEO in the form of Roger Wynne-Dyke, fantastic volunteer mentors, some helpful funders (such as Autonomous Research, Danone, RP Martin and many individual donors), a committed group of trustees such as Toby Hurlstone and Asif Godall, and myself as chair. Over the last 10 years, we have helped over 500 students pass their exams, with a 70% plus success rate, and many have come back to help mentor the next generation of students.

If you or your company would like to know how you can join our team of mentors, please contact [email protected].

 Developing the school proposal

The same group of friends at the wake were skeptical of setting up a school as they similarly had no connection to the education world. But I had made a promise and continued to ask people at any gathering whether they knew anyone who knew about these new "free schools". Eventually someone did, and Habiba Hamid introduced me to Hassan Damluji, who was working for McKinsey at the time, in Education, and now leads Middle East Relations at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. We instantly clicked, and decided we would work together to create the One Degree Academy.

Over the next several years, we together recruited some amazing people such as Jacob Kestner, who had helped build schools in Kenya and the Philippines and worked at Pearson, and now leads EduCo Ireland, and Natasha Porter who was at the Policy Exchange and is now CEO of the amazing Unlocked Graduates initiative that develops top university students to become prison officers for two years. Many others joined us in creating the plan for the school, each with their own impressive backgrounds, including Roger Wynne-Dyke, Syed Jaffery (Adnan's uncle), Xiaowei Xu, Dwayne Philip, James Easy, Janina Aitken and Sara Shah.

We submitted our 128 page proposal to the Department for Education on 9 May 2014, and after several hurdles, we were delighted to be approved on 30 September 2014.

Opening the school

There were so many challenges to actually opening the school and acquiring a site that I felt I needed to take time away from EY to ensure that our efforts wouldn’t come to nothing. EY leaders such as Nancy Altobello were very supportive, and allowed me to take a sabbatical of 18 months over a two year period.

We were incredibly fortunate to find an exceptional Principal, Aidan Sadgrove, and COO Joe Howlett. Aidan created an extraordinary operating model for the school, taking best practices from many other schools and creating some innovations of our own. He began to recruit a great group of teachers who were open to continuous learning and embodied the growth mindset of the school.

We also extended our board of governors, and were joined by a committed group: Anushka Sonpal, Rachael Curzons, Charlie Harrel, Adeola Shyllon, and very recently Joy Donaldson.

After many ups and downs, primarily around our site, we were finally able to open the school in September 2016 at a temporary site in Southbury, Enfield in North London. Adnan’s mother, Saeeda Jaffery, cut the ribbon and my promise to my friend was fulfilled.

We are currently in the process of building a brand-new site to house what will eventually become over 1,400 ODA students, aged from 2 to 18. 

The work done to launch the school by Aidan, Joe, Jo Addleton (our Vice Principal) and the dedicated group of amazing teachers was exceptional. Our DfE Adviser, Jeff Hart, gave us very useful insights and feedback into improving our school.

Oftsed

On 11 February 2019, we got the call from Ofsted to say they were coming to begin inspecting our school the next day. This was under their new inspection regime, where none of the 100 most recent Primary Schools at the time had been rated Outstanding. After two long and tough days with very thorough inspectors, we got the indication that we would be rated Outstanding in every single area of inspection. 

The report is here and we are incredibly excited about what this will enable us to do in the future.

Would you like to help?

Over 80% of our students come from the lowest 20% of UK household earnings, and 60% of parents take a weekly food bag from the ODA food store (as shown in our Impact Report).

If you would like to donate to our school and help provide our students with more opportunities for developmental experiences, and help us make even more of an impact, please click here.

If you’d like to visit the school, please let me know - we have VIP Guests come share their life stories every Friday. Over their school lives, our students will meet over 500 adults, and at least one will inspire them.

How did all this happen?

I often wonder how we got here. I guess it was a mixture of luck, persistence, hard work and passionate commitment to a cause by a special group of people.

• All of this happened because I decided to make the effort to go to an event I wasn’t going to attend and meet new people. 
• It happened because of my persistence in asking anyone I met if they knew people who could join the cause. 
• It happened because of the incredible team that somehow got together to build the plan around a vision. 
• It happened because we managed to attract our Principal Aidan Sadgrove who is an incredibly courageous, innovative and hard-working leader. They and others along the long journey helped me fulfil the promise to my friend, by creating a very special school.

At EY we talk about building a better working world by creating ripples. That when you do something good with one person, that then impacts all the people they interact with, as well as inspiring others to do the same. The ripples this team has created will go on to positively change the lives of the students, their extended families and their communities. 

I am forever grateful to the team, and to Adnan for making our very first ripple. 

And I am proud. I am proud of our Principal, our teachers, our Governors, our students and their parents. 

And all of us are proud of our Outstanding new school, the One Degree Academy.