Brooke Weston
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Brooke Weston College | |
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| Established | 1991 |
| Type | City Technology College |
| Principal | Trish Stringer MA |
| Location | Coomb Road Corby Northamptonshire NN18 8LA  England |
| LEA | Northamptonshire |
| Students | 1200 |
| Ages | 11 to 18 |
| School colours | Blue and Yellow |
| Website | Brooke Weston |
Brooke Weston College is a City Technology College in Corby, Northamptonshire, England. It is consistently one of the best performing comprehensive schools in England.[1]
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[edit] Background
Founded in 1991, the school was opened as City Technology College. The college's catchment area includes Corby, Kettering and surrounding towns and villages. Two businessmen, Hugh de Capell Brooke, a local landowner, and Garry Weston, owner of Associated British Foods donated land and funded the initial building of the school respectively, along with additional grants from the Weston Foundation. The Brooke and Weston families gave their name to the school and still play a large role in supporting it today.
The school has proved to be a pioneer in improving the educational opportunities of Corby, which has often been considered as a deprived area. Brooke Weston has an innovative subsidiary company, @tain, which generates a considerable amount of funds for the school through the sale of its online curriculum content.
[edit] Online Curriculum
The school produces and sells an ‘online curriculum’. This consists of a wide range of interactive learning materials and online tasks which all relate to various subject areas. The school's subsidiary company, @tain, then sells access to the content to other schools. In addition, the school also provides training days which allow teaching staff from other schools to attend seminars at the school and learn the methods in which the school teaches the courses provideed on its online curriculum and how to maximise the effectiveness of using it in a classroom environment.
[edit] Information Technology
The school makes use of electronic whiteboards provided by SMART Technologies in all classrooms, learning bases and study rooms. Every student and member of staff have their own user accounts and storage areas. The school also houses a large internal local area network, allowing students to access their work from any computer.
The school also has a state-of-the-art Design Technology suite, with CAD/CAM facilities and a laser cutter which provides pinpoint accuracy when cutting a variety of materials. The CAD/CAM suite also includes a HP A3 colour laser printer. The department also includes two workshops containg CNC lathes, wood-turning lathes, metal working lathes, scroll saws and pillar drills, as well as plenty of other equipment.
The school also has its own video editing studio with chroma-key (blue-screen) facility, running Final Cut Pro on G5 based Macintosh computers..
[edit] A Student's View
Lessons begin within school at 8:35am, with all students signed into the school using their cards by 8:30am. There are 5 lessons within a school day all lasting 1hour15minutes long allowing for extra curricular learning. The school day ends at 4:05pm with school buses departing at 4:15pm from the front of the college.
[edit] Achievements and School Life
The school caters for students from the age of 11 through to 18, in a system of national year groups from Year 7 to 13.
The school is also well known for its sporting prowess, with regular success in many sports at county and regional levels. Like 10E winning tug of war each year since year 7. Every day, assemblies are held in the school’s Weston Theatre, which allow both staff and students to catch up with recent events. After school activities and clubs are also available for students wishing to stay on.
Previous Principal of the college, Peter Simpson, was awarded an OBE in 2006 for services to education and the community.[2].
Since 2005, Brooke Weston College has been deemed to be one of 'the most successful Comprehensive schools in the UK', after 100% of its pupils gained 5 or more A*-C GCSE's annually.
[edit] Academic Ranking
In 2005, Brooke Weston College achieved excellent academic success when 100% of its pupils gained 5 or more A*-C GCSE's.
In 2006 the scoring system for Secondary Schools league tables was adjusted to stipulate that GCSE Mathematics and English must be included in pupil’s performance. The measure used remains % of students achieving 5 or more passes at Grade A*-C in GCSE or Equivalent. As a result, most schools performance declined in 2006 when compared to 2005 results using the previous measure. Brooke Weston achieved 86% of 5 or more top grade passes under the new system compared to 100% in 2005 under the old system, although this was still an excellent achievement.
[edit] Expansion
In September 2008, Brooke Weston will be converting to an Academy. £5 million of Government money will be invested in the school, allowing the construction of the Creative and Digital Arts Centre. This will expand the school's music and drama performing facilities, as well as encompassing kitchens for Food Technology and a new TV studio.
As well as this, the school is in partnership with the new Corby Business Academy, which will replace the currently inadequate Corby Community College. Former principal Peter Simpson will become the Executive Principal of the Brooke Weston Partnership, along with principals Trish Stringer and Andrew Campbell respectively in charge of each school.
