We now have our first academy in the town and its at Francis Combe school, the official celebration was last Friday afternoon.

I have been to the school on many occasions and have always felt it ill deserved its poor reputation. It is great that with this extra investment and re-branding the staff, parents and students feel they can really hold their heads up and say they go to the “academy” and say it with pride.  

The new head has been making significant improvements since she joined the school several years ago - exam results have improved vastly and the school is now over-subscribed for preferences. 

We were treated to performances from individual students and the cast of ‘We will Rock you’ the school musical performing in a few months time. They were great, I really felt uplifted by the whole experience. The number of students who had stayed behind to look after us or perform on a Friday afternoon speaks volumes.

Because of the “test” into secondary schools in our area, there is a perceived pecking order of schools, but the bottom line is this ALL our schools are good schools compared to many other places, that’s why people move to watford!  We should celebrate that fact.  If you’re a parent,  go look at them all and choose the one that suits your individual child the best - they are all different and so are children. More and more parents are now looking at The Academy, and I can certainly see why.