It is really pleasing to see that eight executive headteachers/headteachers/heads of school have been recruited from within their own school; a demonstration of the strong succession planning and the support that they have been given in their senior leadership roles. I have had the pleasure of visiting eight of the above new headteachers over the first few weeks of term and seeing first hand what a great start they have made.

As I have said many times before, Barnet education continues to flourish due to the strong relationships and partnerships between schools and between schools and the Local Authority. As you know, in BELS we are here to support your school's vision, school improvement needs and support senior leaders and governors to get through the challenges and stresses.

Barnet is a highly diverse and multi faith Borough with 37% Christian, 15% Jewish and 12% Muslim (based on the 2021 Census). 20% indicated they had “No Religion.” The data reveals that the Christian population remains the largest religious group within the Borough, with 142,321 individuals identifying as Christian in 2021. The Christian population has decreased by 2.6 percentage points, that equates to 10,179 fewer individuals identifying as Christian on this most recent 2021 census. There has been an increase in individuals identifying as both Jewish and Muslim (although the percentage of Jewish has reduced by 0.7 percentage points and the percentage of Muslims has increased by 1.9 percentage points). Whilst the Christian and Jewish population remain the two dominant religious groups within the Borough, the data reveals that the Muslim population has experienced a 1.9 percentage point growth and remains the third largest religious population in the Borough with 47,688 individuals identifying as Muslim.

The Council aim to try to meet the parental preferences regarding the types of school for their children. 42 of the 94 primary/all through schools in the Borough are faith schools (17 Jewish, 15 CofE and 10 Catholic) and 9 of the 25 secondary schools are faith schools (4 Jewish, 4 Catholic and 1 Greek Orthodox). With 12% of our population Muslim, we welcomed the application from Barnet Hill Academy (an Independent Muslim Faith School) to become state maintained, the first Muslim state school in the Borough. Following a robust due diligence process, the Council agreed that the school now met the criteria in order to recommend the application be approved. Barnet Hill Academy became a Voluntary Aided State school on 1st September 2026. We welcome their staff, parents, governors, community and most importantly their pupils into the Barnet family of schools.

We recently appointed Victor Roman into a new post of Director of Transformation in BELS to join the BELS SMT for the next two years, funded by the SEN Reforms Transformation Grant. Victor was previously the London Lead for the SEND and AP Change Programme Partnership and is providing senior strategic leadership for transformation across BELS, with a primary focus on the successful implementation of Barnet's SEND and Alternative Provision Reform Plan. He is obviously working in close partnership with Kim Miller to ensure that Barnet delivers an ambitious, coherent and financially sustainable programme of SEND reform across education, health, care, schools, settings and the wider local area partnership, moving the reform plan from strategy into implementation.