Mark Lehain: Today is the Bedford Free School's first birthday – we have all learned so much

Mark Lehain is the founder and Principal of Bedford Free School.

Today marks two very important anniversaries for Bedford Free School. It isn’t only a year to the day since we opened our doors to our first students, it is also exactly three years since our project was on the list of the first 16 free schools approved by Michael Gove .

Last September we opened with two year groups and nearly 200 students, and yesterday we grew to four year groups and just under 400 students. We had a phenomenally successful first year of operation: all 200 places filled, a strong staff body, excellent feedback from students and their families and, perhaps most importantly, incredible academic progress: on average our students made 2 years’ progress in maths and English in just 10 months.

And all of this took place against an extremely hostile local political backdrop and a planning permission dispute that dragged on and on and on, until it was eventually resolved in our favour.