Forest Hill School
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| Forest Hill School | |
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| Motto | Specialist school in Performing arts |
| Type | Secondary |
| Headteacher | Peter Walsh |
| Location | Mayow Road Forest Hill London Borough of Lewisham England |
| LEA | Lewisham |
| Ofsted number | 100745 |
| Students | 1360 |
| Gender | Boys |
| Ages | 11 to 18 |
| Houses | Drake Harvey Reynolds Shackleton |
| Publication | Our Voice |
| Website | Official Website |
Forest Hill School is a comprehensive boys school located on Dacres Road, Forest Hill in the London Borough of Lewisham which opened in 1956. The school has very close ties with the girls secondary, Sydenham School which is located close by. The school is now in federation with Sedgehill School (mixed school) and Sydenham School, making the federation Hillsyde, which is the name of the sixth form federation.
In 2005 the school was given Performing Arts status for its Drama, Dance, Music and Art courses and currently has a silver artsmark by the English Arts Council [1][2]. The school has a very good reputation in the local area compared to in 2000 when it had a bad reception due to bad results. The school now is often oversubscribed and the acceptance area has recently been forwarded by around 200 yards. The school also has a prestigious Investor in People award [3]
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[edit] Location
Forest Hill School is located in between the London Borough of Lewisham districts of Forest Hill and Sydenham. The school's main entrance is set on Mayow Road, although there is another entrance on Bampton Road next to the sport hall. The London Buses route 75 runs outside the school and also provides a school bus service in the afternoon towards Catford.
[edit] Information
[edit] Uniform
Forest Hill School uses the same type of uniform as other schools in Great Britain. It includes the distinctive school blazer which is black in colour. Other parts of the uniform include a white shirt, black trousers, black socks and black shoes along with a jumper which is optional. The tie is a single white stripe on a black base but from Year 9 up it changes to double white stripes on a black base. House Captains in Year 11 wear a blue tie with white stripes and the Forest Hill School symbol of a horse.
[edit] Sport
The school enjoys top notch sporting facilities with the new sports hall which opened in 2006, and came to a cost of £4.5 million. There are various clubs in the school for a range of sports which include Trampolining, Indoor/Outdoor Cricket, Table Tennis, Indoor Basketball and Indoor/outdoor Football. Plus in the Sports Hall there is a professional arena with a scoreboard.
Once pupils are in Year 10, they are allowed to choose what sports they do, as part of Games (as long as they are in the double science GCSE groups. This includes all the sports mentioned above, plus swimming, sailing, canoeing and rock climbing. Certain students are also allowed to do gym and weight training. The school has a Sportsmark.
[edit] Demographics
In the area there is a high number of people from different backgrounds. The school is another part of this community as around 50% of the pupils who attend the school are from a non-white cultural background. The highest volume is of Black British individuals and mixed race.
[edit] Form System
Each year group at the school is divided into forms. There are usually nine forms per year, organised by house. In years 7 through to 11 the forms are sorted into houses which the students keep from year 7, the house colours are Blue, Green, Red and Yellow. In years 10 and 11 there are separate teaching groups from the forms in all subjects. The sixth form at the school does not use the house system.
[edit] Houses
All students are assigned a House on entering the school. The four houses of Forest Hill are named after famous people of the 18th, 19th and early 20th century's, each designated a colour which determines the colour of the trim on the school blazers worn by the pupils. While the house only initially determines which form the student is in, it forms the basis of sport teams throughout each pupil's career at the school. As such, friendly rivalries exist between each house especially at the end of every school year when students from year seven, eight, nine and ten take part in a sports day at the National Athletics Stadium at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. The houses compete to win the most points to win the best sporting house award, and another award is given to the house who was the most supportive (noise, banners, house colours for shirts) that day.
These houses are:
- Drake (Red)
- Harvey (Yellow)
- Reynolds (Light Blue)
- Shackleton (Green)
However When the school opened in 1956 there were 6 houses and Head Of Houses (HOH) were called House masters they consisted of
- Drake (Dark Blue)
- Harvey (Yellow)
- Reynolds (Light Blue)
- Shackleton (Green)
- Browning (Red)
- Newton (Brown)
The new housing system started in 2006, where you still have the F and G forms in that year making up a year in that house. You also may have an E form group which is an extra form added to only one house that year. Now there is also a S form which is the same as the E but added to a different house in that year. Pupils are recognised by what house they are in by the code such as R9F(Reynolds, year 9, F(French MFL) form) or S11E (Shackleton, Year 11, E form group).
The letters stand for:
- F - these groups do French only, as their modern foreign language
- G - these groups do German only, as their modern foreign language
- E - this stands for extra, these groups do French only for a language (However, the 'E' groups do not exist any more (from September 2007)
- S - this stands for Spanish, these groups only do Spanish (which was added in the 2006/07 term) for a language
Students who come to the school can not choose which language they do, as they are put in tutor groups randomly. The only time they can choose the subject they do is when they change to Key Stage 4 in Year 10 and pick their choices.
[edit] Sixth Form
The sixth form at the school is not put into houses but just classes for the subjects that they do as the sixth form at Forest Hill is part of the Hillsyde consortium, mixed with Sydenham and Sedgehill (hence the name), so if they were put into groups this would lead for people to travel to another school after registration at another one.
[edit] Management
[edit] Headmaster
The current headmaster of the school is Peter Walsh, who has been credited on turning the school's fortunes around in 2001 as the school was suffering from very poor GCSE results.
[edit] Senior Management
There are many members of the senior management team at Forest Hill School, the figures as they currently stand include:
- Mick Levens - Deputy Head
- Michael Sullivan - Assistant Head (from September 2007)
- John Munt - Assistant Deputy Head (from September 2007)
- Yvonne Baille - Assistant Deputy Head
Forest Hill School recruit teachers by assessing the way they teach a particular subject, go through an interview with someone from the Senior Management team and a student governor and since 2007 additional members of the Senior Management Team have had to go through another interview with four students from the School Council.
[edit] Student Leadership
At the end of the Spring term, new Year 11 prefects are chosen, two from every form group (usually four from every house). Leadership roles amongst the prefects include the Head, Deputy Heads and four House Captains for the student council. Other school prefects are divided between the roles of Duty Prefect and Form Prefect. The school also includes a school council which takes care of student issues and passes them on to the senior management and the headteacher. The school council works similar to the way that the form groups work, as two school councilors are chosen from each tutor group and in Year 9 a selected amount of them may become trainee prefects throughout year 10, this gives them a better chance to become prefects and house captains in Year 11.
[edit] Redevelopment
[edit] Sports Hall
In 2006 the school's new £4.5M state-of-the-art sports facility was opened with lottery funding and help with Sport England and The FA Charter Standard Schools Program[4]. The facility features a large air conditioned sports hall with basketball nets, indoor cricket, indoor football markings and goals and a scoreboard. The other part of the gym includes a fitness suite, cafè, space for trampolining and table tennis, new changing room facilities with showers and also two of the old three gyms (although gym two is being used as the dinner hall while the redevelopment). The sports centre opened on top of Gym 3, but was also expanded towards Bampton Road on the other side of the school.
[edit] Main building
The school also begun a major redevelopment project which started in July 2006. The project was expected to take 18 months but work had gone faster than anticipated and was opened in January 2008.[5] During the re-build many of the classrooms had been replaced by portable buildings. Work on landscaping the front of the school at the Mayow Road entrance is continuing.
The only part of the school which remains unchanged is the current art block, which was built recently. The rest of the school will be entirely demolished and rebuilt from the ground up with the current three floor plan changed to a higher four story building.
The names of the buildings of portable buildings near the Bampton Road entrance is called The Village or V. The main portable building consists of 10 large classrooms and around 4 offices on two floors for use for activities such as Maths, English, Geography and History. The other portable building consists of four classrooms for Drama and Design & Technology. The room numbers in the portable buildings are organised so not to be confused with the old building. They all start with a V - . Such as V5 or V17.
[edit] Ofsted Report
The school has received some very encouraging reviews from the school regulator Ofsted according to the 2004/05 prospectus.[6] The regulator commented on the school in general and also on the pupil/staff relationship saying that it was "very close". They also said:
Pupils are known, valued, cared for and supported very efficiently in order that they can achieve well.
They also said in the report that:
The quality of the curriculum, supported by very good opportunities outside the formal lessons, provides pupils with a good range of learning experiences. The programme is particularly well managed and has successfully helped create an ethos not only where success is recognised but where trying to succeed is recognised.
Ofsted inspectors have also recently reviewed the school, between the 18 September and 19 September 2007, although the report is yet to be written.
[edit] Hillsyde Sixth Form
The sixth form at Forest Hill is combined with Sydenham School and Sedgehill School, the official name is the Hillsyde Consortium. The sixth form provides one of the best choice in South London, and was established over 30 years ago. Each school in the consortium contributes to the courses on offer, and has dedicated Sixth Form facilities. Students who attend the sixth form will be based at one Sixth Form Centre for tutorial and form groups, and then theycan choose courses at any of the schools. A shuttle bus service runs at lunchtimes between the schools for students following courses at different sites. The motto is The Best of Three Schools. The Hillsyde Federation Leader is Chris Matthews.
