On the 20th September 2016 our Founder and Executive Chair Barney Smith was elected Chair of Belmont School. He has been involved with Belmont School for 4 years and Vice Chair for two years.
Belmont is a very special school.
It is rated as Outstanding, and managed to maintain that status despite an inspection just one term into a new headship, with a totally new senior leadership team. This is because the Governing Body had planned and executed such a strong transition.
But Belmont is special for other, more personal reasons to Barney Smith:
‘It caters solely for 105 children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) between the ages of 4 and 16. Belmont’s Children have Moderate Learning Difficulties with additional complex needs, such as social and emotional difficulties, speech, language and communication difficulties, autism, behavior, emotional and social difficulties.
My personal commitment is because I was a misfit at school. Often in trouble because I cannot follow rules or work to the exam question; I was always off on another plane.
However I was lucky, I was high performing, so when my parents were challenged they always asked the teachers ’so, what are his results, and therefore what is the problem’. I skipped lessons often and self-taught, eventually teachers did generally acknowledge that my academic studies went better for it after getting post graduate degrees at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College, London.
I did not realise that my problem was that I thought differently, because of dyslexia until the 2nd year of my undergraduate degree at Cambridge University. My brain is different to most people.
But that is what makes me a good innovator – and finding new ways to solving old problems
My involvement to date has taught me about good leadership, capability and influence. I believe that makes me a better Chair of Perform Green, and it is aligned with our values.’