Charters Review From Strength to Strength
Mr M Parker and Mr R Pilgrim, Co-Headteachers
designed to enable public access to the pool during the school day in addition to supporting our delivery of the PE curriculum. The new hall will allow a greater number of our students to meet for special assemblies and our existing sports hall will be increasingly used as a much needed examination space. We anticipate work on this building commencing in late 2018.
September 2017
‘A new Royal Borough leisure centre for Ascot and the Sunnings’ This was the headline that we have been waiting for! After many years of negotiations, the School and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead have signed an agreement to proceed with the construction of a new joint -use leisure facility on the school site. The proposed building includes a six-lane 25m swimming pool, multi-use sports hall, 50 station gym and a dance studio. It will be
Work has just started on our new two-storey classroom block, which comprises 11 mathematics teaching rooms and two science laboratories. This work, funded by the Royal Borough, as part of its school expansion programme, will be completed ready for the start of the autumn term 2018 when our second cohort of 270 year 7 students will join us.
Examination success
The exciting improvements to our facilities are only possible because of the school’s continuing popularity and this, in turn, is based on the continuing excellent outcomes achieved by our students in public examinations. This year has been no different with both Mr. Linton’s and Miss Goody’s year groups gaining superb A level and GCSE results respectively. Both qualifications were subject to significant changes with a limited amount of guidance for staff and students from the examination boards. Nevertheless, at A level our students achieved record-breaking results with the A*-B
grades measure at 58% (4% up on our performance at this stage last year). We are particularly proud that our A-E grade figure was 99% with 31% of the grades awarded being A*-A. This demonstrates our ability to ensure that sixth formers of all academic ability levels can do well and especially our more able students as the A*-A figure was 4% higher than in 2016 compared to a 0.5% rise nationally. In addition we have a record breaking eight students going to Oxford University or Cambridge University and the vast majority of students have been accepted into their first choice university.
The changes at GCSE have made it more difficult to make meaningful comparisons and judgements at this stage. There are, however, a couple of headline figures that can be compared with our previous outcomes and these are very encouraging. The ‘Basics’ measure shows the number of students gaining grade level 9-4 (A*-C) for English and Mathematics and this year 81% of the cohort achieved this measure compared to 78% in 2016. In addition, 79% achieved 5 Standard Passes (A*-C) including 9-4 for English and Mathematics – again an improvement on 2016. These appear to be strong outcomes bearing in mind that the English and Mathematics examinations have been made harder (results for these subjects were down nationally) and also there was a 0.6% drop overall nationally for the number of Standard Passes. We are also delighted that the Year 11s achieved 35% for the number of A*/A grades, or equivalent, awarded. As more national information and analyses emerge from the Department for Education and Ofsted, we will let you know where this places us in a national context but our initial analysis confirms that these are strong results and our students, their families and staff should be proud of these achievements.
The national context We have already mentioned that education is going through an unprecedented period of curriculum and ex-
amination change. This coming year, the vast majority of GCSE and A level students will be following the new versions of these qualifications. This means, for example, that GCSE students will be graded 1-9, with 9 the highest grade that can be awarded. Our job, therefore, will be to ensure that we provide you and the students with as much information and guidance about these qualifications as possible. Also, we will continue with teaching approaches that prepare students for the demands of more and longer written examinations at the end of two years’ study. Another on-going issue is the national squeeze on the funds available to schools. We hope you feel that we have kept you informed about this situation and the steps we have taken to ensure that Charters continues to use its funds efficiently. Whilst we are not immune from some of the consequences of reducing costs, such as bigger group sizes and a heavier lesson load for teachers, we have managed our budget well and feel confident we can deliver a high-quality education. We will continue to look at ways to increase our income and reduce unnecessary waste; and we will also monitor news coming from the Department of Education about the £1.3billion sum that Justine Greening indicated could be given to schools to help relieve current funding pressures
Student-centred
Gully scrambling at Tirabad
The focus of our efforts over the coming year will continue to be about preparing our students to lead happy, successful and productive lives. Yes, achieving great examination results is important but our investment of time and effort in providing students with a range of extra-
curricular opportunities (with Tirabad as our jewel in the crown) and our status as the origin school and champion of the PiXL Edge programme are crucial in why Charters students are sparky, rounded and well-adjusted young people.
In the last few weeks, for example, we hosted the Southern region awards event for the PiXL Edge scheme and have had two successful summer trips: the world expedition to Malawi and the music trip to Barcelona.
school. For more information contact Rebecca Herbert E: r.herbert@chartersschool.org.uk T: 01344 298704
Building on the work we have already highlighted regarding the all-round development of our students, we have changed our curriculum in order to deliver a fortnightly tutor period for all year groups. This slot will be used to cover key elements of our Citizenship, PSHE, Careers and Edge programmes as well as other topics and issues specifically relevant for individual year groups; and, of course, the strength of this scheme is that these important topics will be delivered by the tutors.
Charters’ Diamond Anniversary
We look forward to reporting on these exciting opportunities for the students when we receive feedback from the participants. We also look forward to getting to know our new Year 7 cohort who were in school at the start of the holidays for the annual Summer School. Well done to all the students involved and thank you to all the staff who organised and ran these important activities.
The year ahead
2017-18 promises to be another significant year for the school. We hope to see many of you on 19th September to tell you about one of our main innovations this year as we launch our restructuring of Charters Friends which involves creating four distinct areas – Fundraising, Social, Volunteering and Alumni – that should enable anyone who wants to be involved even more closely with the
Charters School will be sixty in 2018! We are planning a year-long celebration of the School’s success culminating with the official opening of our new Mathematics and Science building in October next year. Our weekly email will provide you with all the dates of special events being organised to mark this important milestone in the School’s history.