The Burgate School And Sixth Form Centre

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The Burgate School
Learning For Life
Location
Salisbury Road, Fordingbridge, Hampshire, SP6 1EZ
Fordingbridge, England
Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England
Information
Principal Mrs C J Nicholls
Enrollment

~1,000

Type State Foundation School
Established 1957
Information 01425 652039
Homepage

The Burgate School opened in 1957 and is an 11-18 comprehensive school which opened in 1957. The school is situated in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, and at the current time has approximately 1250 students. The school is heavily over-subscribed, with pupils achieving results above the national average at all levels, and good GCSE results. The school's motto is 'Learning for Life'.

Contents

[edit] Ofsted inspections

The school was last inspected by Ofsted in 2007: the inspection report judged the school to be 'good' and the Sixth Form college to be 'outstanding'.[1] The Burgate School and Sixth Form Centre was recognised in Ofsted's 2005 "honours list" of the most outstanding schools in England, one of 234 schools that had been mentioned twice in chief inspectors' annual reports over the preceding decade.[2] [3] After a successful grant from the government a new extension was added to house an extra 290 pupils and 6th form students. However in April 2008 the payments from the government were stopped and Burgate school still faces debts of £148,000 due to the fact that they cannot afford to pay for the new building.

[edit] Specialist Bid Attempts

The School initially applied for specialist status in Sports in 2002. These plans were later discarded. Modern Languages was later considered as a possible 'specialism', before it was decided to apply for the status in Humanities. According to the Headteacher's latest newsletter, fundraising for this proposal is at an advanced stage.

[edit] Tutor groups and houses

Each year group has six tutor groups and each of the tutor groups in the 11-16 school is given a house. There are six houses: Delta, Sigma, Lambda, Omega, Pi and Theta. These houses replaced the previous Northgate, Southgate, Eastage and Westgate, which in turn supplanted a system based on local places some time in the 1970s. Houses compete against each other during the annuals sports day. There are also sports assemblies with the sports heads all through the year.[citation needed]

[edit] Staff

The current headteacher is Mrs Celia Nicholls, who first joined the school as a teacher in 1983, from Ansford School, Castle Cary, and became headteacher in 1988.[4]

There are around 50 teachers at the school, four of whom make up the Senior Management Team (SMT): David Pover, Robert Slater, Fiona Bradfield and Ian Kirby.

[edit] History

  • 1957: Founded in January as a secondary modern school, under the name "Fordingbridge County Secondary School". Ralph Labdon, Headteacher
  • 1962: Name changed to "The Burgate County Secondary School".
  • 1967: Ralph Labdon retires and is replaced by David Benfield.
  • 1980: Following county reorganisation into the comprehensive system, the school re-opened in September as "The Burgate School" with comprehensive status.[4]
  • 1981: David Benfield retires as Headteacher, and is replaced by Alan Hollands.
  • 1988: After an extended secondment, Alan Hollands assumes a full-time job at TRIDENT Training Hampshire. He is succeeded by Deputy Head Celia Nicholls. The current Deputy Head, Ian Kirby, also joined the school.
  • 1994: New drama block and science facilities opened by Murray Walker.
  • 1995: New sixth form centre opened by Esther Rantzen and Desmond Wilcox, [5]
  • 2000: Extension to the Sixth Form.
  • 2007: Mr Pover passes his head teachers award.
  • 2008: New Sixth Form annexe under construction.[5]
  • 2008: Government stops funding for the new annexe. Burgate faces £148,000 debts.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ofsted inspection report, 27 September 2007
  2. ^ Schools named more than once in the Particularly Successful Schools list up to 2003-2004, Ofsted
  3. ^ BBC News education website, 7 January 2005
  4. ^ a b Salisbury Journal, 5 July 2007
  5. ^ a b Salisbury Journal, 3 February 2007

[edit] External links