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Charters School Specialist Sports and Science College
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Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
A message from the Co-Headteachers We would like to offer you and your children a warm and sincere welcome to Charters School. At Charters, we believe in setting the highest possible standards in everything we do. We are a true comprehensive, each pupil is recognised as an individual and encouraged to develop his or her full potential. We set high standards of appearance and behaviour, seeking to provide a purposeful, happy and caring environment where pupils can flourish. Our motto best summarises what Charters stands for: ‘Unity, Respect, Excellence’. Unity: every member of the school community works together in common pursuit of the school’s aims. Respect: every member of the school community recognises and values each others’ individual qualities and characteristics. Excellence: every member of the school community tries to achieve their personal best in all that is undertaken and feels a collective, as well as a personal, sense of pride in these achievements. We hope this prospectus gives you a flavour of Charters School. However, a prospectus alone cannot convey the richness and full extent of the achievement and opportunities available and we would extend an open invitation to you to come and visit the school.
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Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
What’s special about Charters? • • • •
High standards of Achievement Outstanding Care and Support Outstanding Opportunities A school at the heart of the community
This outstanding school is rightly prized by the local community. Staff, students and parents are proud of their school and the education it provides. Students excel in their academic achievement and personal development. They behave impeccably and show tremendous respect to their teachers and each other. Students relish opportunities to develop their leadership skills and take on responsibility. Their outstanding conduct and appreciation of other people’s needs contribute to an extremely cohesive school community’. — Ofsted
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Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
High Standards of Achievement ‘Students are inquisitive and enjoy acquiring knowledge. They work well together in lessons and enjoy excellent relationships with their teachers.’ — Ofsted
Academic Standards During their time at the school, our pupils achieve well above the national average at GCSE and for post-16 courses. Our contextual value added scores – what pupils achieve in relation to their prior attainment and individual circumstances – are extremely strong establishing us as one of the highest achieving schools in the country.
Teaching The overwhelming majority of lessons are taught by subject specialists and the quality of teaching is a strength of the school. Teachers are utterly committed to the success of the pupils and this success is built on strong relationships of mutual respect.
Behaviour We expect our pupils to develop into responsible members of the school community, respecting the needs of others and becoming ambassadors for their school. The outstanding Ofsted grade achieved for this area demonstrates that our pupils rise to these expectations.
Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
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Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
Outstanding Care and Support ‘Many aspects of care, guidance and support are outstanding and have had a demonstrable impact in improving outcomes for some of the most vulnerable learners’. — Ofsted
Primary Liaison Extensive liaison takes place with our feeder primary schools culminating in a two day visit to Charters when taster lessons are experienced. Before starting at Charters, Year 6 pupils are also visited by their prospective Head of Year and each parent and child have a personal interview with a senior member of staff.
Pastoral Care Considerable care is taken to place pupils in mixed ability tutor groups. The tutor is the lynchpin of the school’s system of caring for pupils and tracking personal development. Like the Head of Year, the tutor, as far as possible, stays with the tutor group until Year 11.
Communications We believe in the importance of close links between the school and the family. A clear structure of parents’ evenings, formal reports and on-line information about academic and extra-curricular achievement, attendance and behaviour is supported with the use of the Record Book. The Headteachers’ weekly email provides parents with news about school life and, during the year, a range of open evenings take place providing information relevant to different year groups.
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Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
Outstanding Opportunities ‘Students particularly appreciate the wide range of extra-curricular opportunities available and most belong to at least one sport. Provision for extra-curricular sports is exceptional…’ — Ofsted
Curriculum The school has worked hard over a long period to develop a curriculum that Ofsted identified as ‘an outstanding aspect of the school’s provision allowing pupils of all abilities, aptitudes and interests to follow courses here or off site suited to them.’ This has been achieved without any loss of academic rigour as shown by the impressive number of pupils gaining the English Baccalaureate.
Extra-curriculum At least 75% of pupils regularly attend one of the 70 plus extra-curricular activities each week. Sports and Arts are particularly strong but pupils can go along to such diverse clubs as The Chess Club or The Creative Writing Group. There is also an impressive range of residential experiences offered to pupils besides Tirabad, including foreign exchange visits to France and Spain, ski and watersports trips abroad as well as World Challenge and Duke of Edinburgh expeditions. During the school year there are ample opportunities for pupils to showcase their talents with the school production, an extensive programme of music concerts and the dance show particular highlights.
Tirabad The school is very fortunate to have access to Tirabad, a residential outdoor education centre in Wales, which hosts a range of residential visits by pupils of all ages throughout the year. Pupils often highlight their visits to Tirabad as the best memory of their time at Charters. This is no surprise as they are able to experience climbing, abseiling, kayaking, caving, gorge walking, mountain biking, not to mention washing up and cleaning.
Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
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Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
At the Heart of the Community ‘The school’s work in partnership with other organisations is outstanding…’ — Ofsted
Ascot Partnership The school works extremely closely with its group of feeder primary schools, known as The Ascot Partnership, because we see the educational experience of each pupil as a continuous journey. Throughout the year our staff and pupil leaders work in the primary schools establishing relationships to enable our future intake to flourish.
Global The school understands that our pupils are part of a global community and our International Schools award means we work hard to make them aware of the opportunities and responsibilities this brings. Beside World Challenge trips, the school has formal links with Holy Family Combined School in South Africa and the Bahrain education system and is always looking to develop further opportunities.
Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
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Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
Charters School — Specialist Sports and Science College
Sixth Form A substantial number of our students move into the Sixth Form after GCSEs and this number is swelled by an increasing intake of students from other institutions. The attraction of the Sixth Form is its consistently high academic standards, the wide range of academic and vocational courses provided and the excellent purpose-built facilities.
Extensive academic monitoring helps ensure that...students make good progress in their learning, with the most able making outstanding progress.
Detailed information about the Sixth Form at Charters can be found in our separate Sixth Form Prospectus.
Please see our website for further information.
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Charters School Charters Road, Sunningdale Berkshire, SL5 9QY T 01344 624 826 F 01344 875 182 charters@chartersschool.org.uk