My vision for the future of our city’s education

In an interview with The Argus he told how he feels let down by his time at school and said he had to do it his own way having left at 16 with just a handful of GCSEs.

After returning to re-sit his English exam, he went to work as a post boy at East Sussex County Council before working for the local authority which became Brighton and Hove City Council.

Some five years after leaving school, he qualified as an accountant which kickstarted his career.

Sir Rod Aldridge, who celebrated his 68th birthday last week, founded Capita in 1984 and led the company to become a member of the FTSE 100 index.

He retired from Capita to set up the Aldridge Foundation in 2006.

Having set up the foundation, he decided to sponsored two schools in Brighton and Hove.

Now, Brighton Aldridge Community Academy and Porstlade Aldridge Community Academy are both his.

Describing his decision to get into education, he said: “I think it is massively important to an individual and I think every young person is entitled to a good education.

“I suppose I thought my education was not what it should have been and I felt it didn’t stretch me.

“I think that’s wrong so my feeling was I wanted to change it.

“So what we’re doing now is trying to transform the way young people learn and to give them more confidence to do things.”

He had tried to take over the then Falmer High School in 2004, but the council did not accept his offer.

Four years later he returned and got his way as well as acquiring the Chalky Road site in Portslade.

In 2012 – the year he received his knighthood for services to young people – the number of students at PACA with five A* to C grades including English and maths was down at 38 per cent.

Two years earlier, BACA – under its former guise of Falmer High School – was down at 23 per cent.

Last year, PACA hit the 60 per cent mark and BACA the 30 per cent mark.

Q&A WITH SIR ROD ALDRIDGE

Take us back to your education. What do you think failed you in that regard? 
I often ask myself that question. 
I was a very hard worker but something in my head didn’t click and I think I didn’t have the teacher that inspired me to want to learn. 
When I got to Portslade County School for Boys, it was very apparent that education was restricted. 
It didn’t feel I was going anywhere.
I left at 16 and I had to retake English and then I went to work for a local authority and qualified as an accountant five years after that. 
The brain was working, but something wasn’t working with the school. 
When I go back now, we’ve now begun to transform the school. 

What were you like as a student? 
Football and cricket were the sports I loved and was good at. 
I was captain at football and I felt that was my outlet, but I was an introverted student and quiet. 
I actually danced, which is not generally known, and I did competitive dancing from seven to the age of 20. 
I was very good at it, I danced at the Royal Albert Hall and it showed I was capable of expressing myself. 
We’ve now designed a programme for dance in schools through the foundation and got through to 100,000 young people to introduce them to it. 

Was that something you were open about with your friends and classmates or something you kept quiet? 
Thankfully there wasn’t internet. 
My close friends would know about it. 
I couldn’t play sport on Saturday because I would be away with a dance competition and I had lessons in Portslade Town Hall so it was all local. 
If people knew, it was very unusual and people would have taken the mickey. 
It’s fascinating with dance, everyone wants to get up and do it but they can’t admit it. 
It made me competitive and I was out to prove something. 
You don’t know the talent you’ve got in you. My philosophy is that you have to find that in every student. 
Everyone is good at something and sometimes it’s not academic. 
To dance in front of 5,000 people takes courage and you’ve got to be good, therefore you work hard at it and practice. 
I think schools now are more open. 

Was there a lightbulb moment when you decided to set up the foundation? 
I think it’s always been in me to work with young people.
I’ve always felt that if you can’t get it right for young kid then what’s our future. 
I didn’t see us ever being so successful and large. We’ve now got 12 academies and colleges and it’s been remarkable being a part of that. When you start something, you’ve got to keep going at it. 

Was it natural that you’d come to improve the education scene in Brighton? 
When I decided I wanted to sponsor an academy, this was the first place I came to. 
I came in 2004 and the city council wouldn’t do it. 
I went to see Falmer High as it was there and put a proposal forward.
I came back in 2007 and 2008, so I don’t give up, and we went from there. 
Every school means a lot, but to do this in your home town and the school you went to is amazing. 
Very few people in the industry would’ve had that chance, so it’s quite special. 

What was wrong with the schools in the first place and how have you improved them?
The facilities and the accommodation were not fit for purpose, so across the three sites we’ve raised more than £50 million. 
You start with people feeling proud to go there and we felt the leadership had to be changed and what goes with that is a new vision, a belief and the students have been fantastic and they’ve embraced it. 

At the moment BACA and PACA are undersubscribed. Why do you think that is?
History always plays a part in people’s thinking. It takes time. 
A lot of it is to do with the admissions policy where people have choice and they exercise that choice. 

There’s a stigma with academies in the city. Why do you think that is? 
I look at it as what’s best for students. In a lot of cases where academies have been introduced the education is not good. 
I think it’s important an academy still has teachers, parents and governors who care.
We’ve found we’ve more than tripled the performance. Personally, I think people need to examine it fully. 

PACA made the pages of our newspaper for the wrong reasons with the fallout around James Fox – what was your involvement in that time?
It wasn’t an easy time.
All the right things were done in the recruitment process. When we recognised something was wrong, we investigated fully and we acted. 

Is there a regret that he did what he did as it seemed he was driving the school forward?
There’s a professional way to act and it’s very clear what that should be. 
For one reason or another, which is unbeknown to me, he didn’t comply with that. I think parents are entitled to expect an individual who runs an organisation to follow what is correct. 
And he didn’t.

Did you know about his record because he left his previous post under a very similar cloud?
We had full disclosure. I knew him in the school he was at previous to that. 

And you were happy with his track record and that it would not happen again?
I’m going to be very different in my answering to you. 
There is a process you follow when you’re recruiting someone and the governing body on his appointment was very happy he could lead the school. 

What is your dream for BACA and PACA? 
I see them as community assets. 
You can start businesses in them, and all of the structures around it. 
Academically I want children to leave having had a great education and have a life where they have a choice about how that develops. 
One of the things I would say about Brighton and Hove is that it should be a greater city than it is. 
I think children can change that and I want them to be at the forefront. 
There’s no reason why we can’t have an education which is similar or better than the other top schools in the city. 

There’s one thing having a goal, it’s another thing achieving it. How are you going to do it? 
We’ve got the ingredients and it’s working. If things need changing you need to be brave enough to change. We will not give in and we will be successful, I’m convinced of that.