Charters News September 2015

Charters News September 2015

Representatives of our strong Sixth Form. Here, from L to R, are Lizzy Hardy who is going on to study Jurisprudence at Oxford; Hannah Carney, Oriental Studies at Oxford and Kasia Ruzkowski who will study French with Italian at Cambridge.

Looking Back and Looking Forward A*/A grades. These results have given our Year 13 cohort the opportunity for their next move whether it be to university, work or a ‘gap year’; and we look forward to celebrating their success at Presentation Evening on Thursday 10 September 2015.

A warm welcome back to school for all our students, staff and parents/carers. We would like to begin by congratulating our Year 11 and Year 13 students from the last academic year on their excellent examination results.

This year’s ‘A’ level results maintained the high standards of the last few years with 54% of students gaining A*-B including a significant number of students (26%) gaining

Charters has established itself over a period of time as one of the best performing state schools in the country when it comes to GCSE results; and this year’s performance is in line with this successful trend. Whilst there are still some results to be processed, the headline measure of 5 A*-C grades (including English and Mathematics) stands at 79.3% - a very strong outcome and one that may improve further.

We are particularly proud of our Year 11 students and their teachers as Key Stage 4 courses and qualifications continue to be subject to change and yet we have maintained our high standards.

We now await the value added analyses of ‘A’ level and GCSE results from Ofsted later in the year which should provide further evidence of our students’ achievement.

We will, of course, report back on these analyses when they are made available.

If the August examination results provide the final judgement on the last academic year, there is still so much more that was achieved by our students and staff that is worth reflecting upon.

As always at this time of year, we are planning our response to the challenges we will face over the next twelve months. These are some of the focal points which may be of particular interest to parents: Learning and Curriculum  Allowing students to use their mobile devices in lessons  Trimming down our Post-16 course choices to make efficiency savings  Introducing the new style GCSE and A-Level courses this year and next year.

One of many enjoyable scenes from “Summer Holiday”

Our students have continued to flourish in several areas including the Arts with last November’s production of ‘Summer Holiday’ a particular highlight, and in sport where we had numerous successes at Regional, County and District levels. At National level we were very proud of our U16 Boys Football team who reached the last 16 of the National Cup and of our Junior Girls Cross Country team who came second in the National Cross Country Cup.

Personnel  Re-doubling our efforts to recruit the best teachers, particularly in the shortage subjects of Maths and Science  Recruiting a greater number of volunteers from our parents/carers and friends of Charters School to run or assist in curricular, extra-curricular or support activities.

Students and Pastoral Care  Planning the introduction of a new progress monitoring system in Years 7-9 in September 2016  Embedding ‘The Edge’ scheme (see below).

Community  Engaging the local authority and parents in the ongoing school expansion debate  Taking a leading role in establishing a local network of cycleways Capital  Replacement of the existing Mathematics block accommodation  Conversion of our oil burners to natural gas.

Our highly successful U16 Boys Football team

As the Co-Headteachers of the school, part of our responsibility, with the Governors and senior school leaders, is to evaluate all aspects of our performance so that we can identify what we need to do to maintain all the good things about the school and improve those areas that need further attention. We are currently producing a report for parents on the key areas of the school’s work that Ofsted would focus on if we were inspected; and a copy of this year’s self evaluation report to parents will soon be available on the website.

We continue to use our motto ‘Unity, Respect, Excellence’ to emphasise the core values and qualities that we want Charters’ students to embody, and with this in mind, this year, we have created and launched ‘The Edge’.

We have always believed that developing rounded individuals who are stand-out candidates for future employment is not just a matter of providing an impressive academic profile. The ‘soft’ skills, qualities and characteristics, are just as and, many would say, more important.

Whilst our Sports College legacy and opportunities outside the curriculum, visiting Tirabad, for example, give Charters’ students a head start, we believe that The Edge will incentivise and inspire all our students to undertake self-development activities within and alongside

their academic curriculum, as well as outside the school setting.

Developing leadership skills in our students: Year 9 Aspiring Young Leaders programme 2015 Creating opportunities outside the classroom at Tirabad

It does this by:  Providing a manageable way of capturing in a bespoke on-line application what students may already do to develop their Leadership, Organisation, Resilience, Initiative and Communication and recording their self-reflection. These five attributes were chosen for simplicity’s sake and to align the virtues of Character Education with employability skills.  Providing a framework for developing these attributes over an extended period (age 7-19) with support from school so that young people are immersed in the language and culture of selfdevelopment.  Awarding a digibadge, which will be recognised by industry as a quality mark. Uploaded to a CV, the potential employer can open the digibadge, view the student’s activity programme and read their summary statement on completion of each level.

At Apprentice and Graduate level the Edge is endorsed by the NCFE national awarding body. At Masters level it is accredited and formally certificated.

A Masters level student might have for instance:  Leadership - Taken responsibility for running a Primary School Cross-country Club alongside a member of staff  Organisation - Organised a staff social media training programme  Resilience - Completed a national long distance path  Initiative - Volunteered to read and record newspapers for the blind over a 12 month period  Communication - Created a set of resources (podcasts, blogs, videos, revision guides) on a subject topic to share with his or her peers to aid revision.

The Masters level will be awarded at Pass, Merit or Distinction based on a viva in front of a panel of representatives from the examination board, business, industry and the community at the end of the course.

For decades, schools have been looking for ways to achieve these aims and our idea has now been embedded by over 250 schools nationwide who, like us, are part of the PiXL network. If you would like more information, click here and scroll down to The Edge.

One of Charters School’s many successes in 2014-2015, the Junior Girls Cross Country team, who came second in the National Championships.

And now to the elephant in the room….. over the next few years, we will have significantly less money to run the school. This year, the continuing drop in funding for Sixth Formers (and we have 450 students in our Sixth Form) and the rather abrupt decision to take additional money from school budgets by increasing the employer’s teacher pension costs and national insurance costs, mean that we have to find, approximately, £600,000worth of savings this year.

Please be assured that we, as the leaders of the school, are going to meet these challenges head on. Our newly appointed Development Team are already building networks with alumni and with the local community and they will also be launching some new initiatives which will provide opportunities for everyone to play a part in guaranteeing the future success of our great school.

Charters Connect The alumni society of Charters School It’s been a busy year for Charters Connect. In January the school appointed Linda Stacey as Development Manager and Alan Carr as Development Ambassador to raise the profile of the school in the local community, to forge partnerships with local individuals and businesses and to help with the fundraising that’s essential to maintaining Charters School as a centre of excellence. Charters Connect is an essential part of this development plan. It is for alumni and for friends of the school: parents of present and past students, local people, local businesses and so on. Join us on Facebook, on Linkedin and on Twitter, or email us at cc@chartersschool.org.uk and get involved.

The school needs people like you!

And, more recently, we welcomed back the Class of 1963.

If you’d like a reunion for your year, let us know and we’ll help you contact students and staff from your year.

This is what we’ve been up to in the last year: The September 2014 prize giving ceremony gave us the chance to welcome our newest alumni. In this photo, from left to right, are: Verity Turner, Clodagh Leonard, Scott Marshall, Miles De’Arth, Clare Killian, Laura Webbe and Kate Deans with TV and stage actress Helen Schlesinger (Slater), who was one of the first Charters’ students to study at Oxford University.

The school is also keen to hear from alumni who’d like to share their experiences of the world of work with the current sixth form. This term, Hugh Robertson (class of 1976) and Alison Clements (class of 1990) came in to talk to 6th formers about their careers and to offer tips for the future. If you have a story to share, please get in contact with us. We’d love to hear from you.

In May, Charters Connect received a call from local man, Derry Sharman (Class of 1970) who asked if he could look round the school. Richard Pilgrim was delighted to oblige and four students from the 1960s were taken on a tour of the school followed by an opportunity to look at old photographs and registers from their time at Charters.

We now have another tour planned for Friday 20 November 2015 so phone the school or contact us at cc@chartersschool.org.uk if you’d like to come along.

In May, we hosted a ‘Now we are (about) 40!’ event for alumni born in (or around) 1975.

Past staff and students had fun in the Durning Room, looking at old photos and sharing stories over a glass or two of wine and some tasty nibbles.

We’re planning ahead too, to make sure we don’t lose touch with our latest leavers. Ruth Matthews (Class of 2015) has created a Facebook group for her year group so that they can organise get-togethers whenever they like.