THE head of Bradford's Dixons Academy Trust, Sir Nick Weller, attended a reception at Downing Street yesterday as the Prime Minister vowed to open another 500 free schools over the next five years.
David Cameron hosted a reception of free schools heads and teachers among them Sir Nick, chief executive and executive principal of Dixons Academy Trust.
The Trust currently operates six schools in Bradford, including the flagship Dixon’s City Academy which is Bradford’s top performing comprehensive and often in the top three per cent of schools nationally for pupil performance.
Speaking at the reception, Sir Nick said: "We are an academy group - we have four sponsored academies and four free schools.
"The free schools have very definitely been an opportunity to innovate; I wouldn’t say to experiment because you don’t experiment with children’s education, but to try a few things that we think have got a good chance of working.
"And to build a school from scratch in a new way - and that itself gives lessons learnt to the other schools within the group, so it’s been a very positive thing from our point of view."
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