Pre-Opening Project Management

At Premier Advisory, we recognise that opening a new school is a challenging process that requires strong leadership, vision and determination. As MAT trustees ourselves, we also recognised that not all great leaders will have sufficient time or internal resources to deliver a successful school opening, without specialist support. PAG is ready today to support you through this process.

Our experience

Premier Advisory has worked with many single and multi academy trusts to write successful free school applications. In 2019 alone, we worked with over 30 proposers, on their free school applications in the Department for Education’s Wave 2 and 14 processes and a number of local authority competitions. PAG has significant experience of pre-opening project management and can help guide clients throughout the rigorous pre-opening process.

PAG offers a high-quality, personalised service to help with the volume and complexity of tasks in pre-opening. Our reliable team of professional, proactive and punctilious project managers will build trusted relationships with all stakeholders, ensuring the success of the project and the timely opening of your new school. Our team will bring to the project skills and expertise, including managing the critical path and risk control. PAG will ensure effective and efficient communications between key individuals and stakeholder groups.

We can provide a combination of strategic advice, practical guidance and task delivery. In such projects there are areas where there is no definitive right answer to an issue (although there are usually many wrong answers!) PAG will set out a range of solutions and their respective strengths and weaknesses so that you can make an informed decision.

How can we support you?

Premier Advisory can support the entire lifecycle of pre-opening by providing expert advice or brokerage on any one of the following elements:

Site and buildings
Recruitment and resourcing
Marketing and engagement
Governance and due diligence
Business planning and finance
MAT formation
Procurement
Policy writing
Statutory Consultation (S10)

I have worked with Tom and the team from Premier Advisory for a number of years, most recently on our successful application to open our second school. I have always found PAG to be ultra-responsive and able to anticipate the needs of the trust and the project. The trust also retains PAG's services on a range of matters from policy work to advice on trust strategy.
We're delighted to have appointed PAG to project manage the Michaela school in Stevenage"

Katharine Birblasingh
Headmistress, Michaela Community School

We have proposed, opened and acted as a DfE or New Schools’ Network Advisor for over

free schools via DFE and LA competitions

Securing our support

Premier Advisory Group's pre-opening services are tailored directly to the requirements of its clients. Those interested in procuring our pre-opening project management service can do so by via the Crown Commercial Services MCF2 Framework or the NHS Consult-18 Framework.

In the first instance we would be happy to discuss your project with and share some of our experiences as free school proposers and as professionals that worked with free schools when it was a movement not a programme. Book some time with us on the link below.