Outwood Family Catch Up...Brian Kelly

As part of our new feature, we are talking with members of the Outwood Family and finding out how life has changed for them since the wider reopening of the secondary academies.

This time we chat with Brian Kelly, Principal at Outwood Grange Academy. 

Read on to see how Brian and the team at Outwood Grange dealt with the wider reopening of the academy to students.

[Outwood.com] Hi Brian, thanks for taking the time to chat with us. We appreciate you’re busy, so let’s get to it! Things have been turned upside down recently, for reasons we are all too aware of. So, as we begin to enter a new ‘normal’, how were you feeling prior to the academy reopening?

“Hello and thanks for asking me to take part! Well, I was feeling genuinely excited to see more staff and students back on site again. 

“I knew they would be nervous at first, like we all were, but it felt so good to see the school come back to life, just a little bit after so long.”

That sense of excitement seems to have been shared by a lot of people in the build up to the wider reopening, but what about the process did you find most challenging?

“My least favourite part of this process was having to divide our SLT into separate bubbles, between the different groups of students that we have in. 

“We are a close team and work incredibly well together, but we can only see each other and talk to each other across barriers now!”

That’s an interesting point which I think has been lost during this discussion, the effect on teams within the staff, as well as the students. So to finish, what has surprised you most during this process?

“I think how quickly the staff and students have adapted and felt they could relax back into being on site again has surprised me most. 

“Students would, understandably, come in anxious and wary of how it would be, but they all left relieved and pleased that a little bit of normality had come back into their lives again. And they were all excellent at following all the new rules!”

Well that’s the kind of positive note we like to end on! So thank you for your time, Brian.