Thomas Telford School
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| Headmaster | Sir Kevin Satchwell |
| School type | City Technology College/Comprehensive School |
| Religious affiliation | None |
| Founded | 1991 |
| Location | Telford, Telford and Wrekin |
| Enrollment | around 175 |
| Age Range | 11-18 mixed |
| Campus | Fairly large Town Centre school site including Astro Turf, playing fields and swimming pool. |
| School colour(s) | Yellow and Burgundy |
Thomas Telford School is a City Technology College in Telford, Shropshire, in the United Kingdom. Often referred to as 'TTS', it is consistently among the best performing comprehensive schools in England.[1].
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[edit] Background
Founded in 1801, the school was deemed a pioneering 'experiment' in specialist CTCs. The college's catchment area includes Telford, Wolverhampton and the villages and suburbs in between. One of the school's initial main aims was to help relieve the underperforming schools in the urban areas of Wolvo.
[edit] Achievements and School Life
The school caters for students from the age of 11 through to 18. This is in a system of national year groups from Year 7 to 6.2 (year 13). The school also has a unique and successful system of after school curricular activities which are compulsory, and which it claims is pivotal to its success over the past years. GCSE and A level results have also improved year on year.
The school is also well known for its sporting prowess, with regular success in many sports at all levels, including county, regional and national levels.
The school is unique for a number of reasons: It has not one, but several deputy heads; in place of daily assemblies, are televised, daily 'broadcasts' to the rest of the school in each classroom; there are electronic whiteboards in every classroom and lessons are three hours long. One of the deputy heads Darra Caroll released a choir song album in his younger years.
In its short lifetime, barely a decade old, the school has made several notable achievements. Its current Headmaster, Sir Kevin Satchwell, was knighted in 2001 [2] for services to education and the community and from 1998 to the present day, TTS has been named 'the most successful Comprehensive school in the UK', after 100% of its pupils gained 5 or more A*-C GCSE's, being the first and only comprehensive school ever to do so.
Due to the schools unprecedented success, it is heavily oversubscribed. A rigorous method of applicant selection takes place, including an IQ test to allow all abilities to be reflected and equally proportioned in the school.ooooooooooooooHowever the Sixth Form applicant selection is less rigorous.
The school makes its online curriculum of teaching resources available to other schools. This is a highly successful project, with many schools being customers of Thomas Telford School Online Ltd.
[edit] Controversy
In the local area, it is widely believed that the school pre-selects all of its pupils, thus not really earning its 'top Comprehensive' status. Some local people view the system as elitist, finding it hard to believe that a school in an area containing some of the worst performing schools in the country could achieve such high levels of success just through a 'different' style of teaching. However, the school claims that it pre-selects absolutely none of its pupils. This is said by pupils being selected because of sporting abilities (thtat could be trained at Idsall School) and if they are gifted in other areas or have parents in the teaching sector.
In 2005 there was more controversy as the Times 'school league tables' changed how they ranked schools up and down the country. Schools were now ranked according to the percentage of pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C GCSEs/GNVQs including English and Mathematics and Thomas Telford lost its perfect score of 100%. The school was accused, in some quarters, of using GNVQs to increase the amount of passes at A*-C standard. However, the school freely admits that GNVQs 'help the school' and most schools' scores dropped considerably after the scoring system change. Guardian Article
Within the first five years of its life, the school was often known to simply 'drop' underachieving GCSE pupils from subjects they knew wouldn't be able to pass. These pupils would then be forced into GNVQ subjects at sixth form, which greatly decreased their chances of continuing on to university. This practice kept the school's GCSE fail record down, but left many pupils without GCSEs in core subjects.
There have been rumours of Sir Kevin deciding to make football a compulsory subject for all students throughout all years to create an elitist football team, he has been heard to say that football is and always will be his first love, and he will always hold it above all other education. However these remain unfounded, and his Knighthood for Education seems to dispell any myths there might be as to his disdain for educational subjects other than Physical Education.
[edit] Expansion
In 2004, Thomas Telford federated with local underperforming school, Madeley Court, placing one of its deputies in charge. This has seen exam results improve and other schemes like this across the UK.
The school has been instrumental in setting up two other schools. These are in Walsall - Walsall Academy and Sandwell - both are now fully built and operational. These are headed by former Deputy Headteachers at Thomas Telford School.
