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Click to view Specialist Status Newsletters:

 

Specialist Status 15 July 09 (PDF file)

Specialist Status 14 March 09 (PDF file)

Specialist Status 13 December 08 (PDF file)

Specialist Status 12 July 08 (PDF file)

Specialist Status 11 April 08 (PDF file)

Specialist Status 10 Jan 08 (PDF file)

 

Specialist Status offers a great opportunity to enhance the quality of teaching and learning at Blenheim. This in turn helps to inspire and enthuse our students and engender within them the desire to become life long learners. This enhancement is driven by the Science and Maths Curriculum Areas but affects all aspects of life at the school. Specialist Status sees Blenheim reach out more into the local community to use our outstanding facilities to enhance the lives of a whole range of local people. Ultimately, Specialist Status sees an improvement in the quality of education and opportunity for Blenheim’s students while at the same time cementing its place at the centre of the local community.

 What difference has it made to Blenheim?

The main changes that Specialist Status has brought about can be divided into three main sections.

  • A Capital Building Project

  • Improvement in the quality of teaching and learning in the school.

  • Greater involvement with the local community.

 Capital Project

 

As part of the funding agreement for Specialist Schools, each school has to use some of the money received in a capital building or refurbishment project. At Blenheim, this has been invested in the construction of a brand new, state of the art, Science laboratory. This new lab is not only fully equipped with a set of eighteen, wireless operated, laptops and an interactive whiteboard, but also has video conferencing facilities that has enabled Blenheim students to forge working relationships with other local and international students.

 Teaching and Learning

Specialist Status is acting as a catalyst for the development of a more personalised learning culture at Blenheim High School. This is being achieved with a massive investment in the use of ICT in the classroom and the development of techniques that sees lessons which are far more centred on the quality of the learning taking place rather than the quality of teaching. In addition, curriculum changes have enabled us to extend the most able and support the least able while still offering greater choice for all our students.

In Year 7, the most able students are invited to join an accelerated Science class that will complete the KS3 curriculum in just over two years. This group will go on to start the GCSE Triple Science course (Biology, Physics and Chemistry studied as separate subjects) in    Year 9. This will enable them to study an extra GCSE in Science and provide them with an excellent grounding if they choose to go on and study Science 'A' levels.

Less able students are being supported with an intensive literacy and numeracy programme which will aim to boost their performance and give them greater access to the curriculum in all their subjects.

Greater opportunity of choice is now being offered at KS4 with the introduction of a Triple Science course for the most able and the soon to be introduced 'Applied Science'. This will offer a Science course which stresses the relevance of Science in the wider world.

At ‘A’ Level, new courses in Science and Maths are being implemented to broaden student choice and increase enthusiasm.

The Local Community 

As a result of Specialist Status, Blenheim is enhancing our relationships with our main feeder schools and helping them to support their students in their study of Science and Maths. This involves projects that help to improve the quality of Science investigation skills amongst the primary school students, as well as extending and challenging the most able. Some of these projects will involve the use of video conferencing and this has been installed to link several of the schools involved with Blenheim.

Blenheim is also seeking to forge stronger links with the local business community, involving them far more in projects in the school and helping to develop a far greater understanding of the world of work amongst our students.