Beaconsfield High School

Beaconsfield High School (commonly known as Becky High) is a girls' grammar school in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. The school takes girls from the age of 11 through to the age of 18. In order to gain admission into Beaconsfield High School; students from Buckinghamshire primary schools are required to take the 11+ examination and score an average of 121/141 across at least one exam, although students who score in the region of 117 will be considered for 'appeal'. The school has approximately 1,100 pupils with around 150 in each year group. Girls are split into one of five houses (Maple, Willow, Beech, Cedar and Rowan) in entry to the school. The school has around 60 classrooms and built a new 'sixth form area' last year which brought around 12 new classrooms, a fully equipped computer room, a new canteen with a larger seating area and a new common room which have all proved to benefit the majority of the school.^[1]

Academics

In September 1997, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) awarded the school specialist school status as a Technology College. It has been awarded a second specialism as a Language College.^[2] The school converted to academy status in September 2014.

In the 2008 exam series it achieved a 100% pass rate at GCSE with an average of 502 points per candidate, and a 100% pass rate at A2 with an average points score of 397 per candidate. As of the 2012 A-Level results, Beaconsfield High School managed to obtain the best A-level results in Buckinghamshire.

Houses and Form groups

On entering the school in year 7, students are placed in form groups. As of the class 2014-15, there are six form groups, all containing girls from different houses. Students stay in the same form groups until the end of year 8, where they will be required to move and meet other students from different forms. There are five houses; Beech, Cedar, Maple, Rowan and Willow. Students in year 12 can apply to be prefects, and one can apply to become a head of house prefect which is considered to be a senior role. The heads of houses are required to encourage students to adopt a 'house identity', run house focuses every other week and organise the house pantomimes by themselves.

'House identities' are also achieved through the organisation of interhouse competitions; the main ones being Pip Cups, Pantomimes and Sports day. Pip cups are inter-house sporting competitions such as netball, hockey and gymnastics. Each year group from year seven to eleven are required to take part.

Timetable

Previously, the school ran on a timetable of 8 lessons a day, each lasting 40 minutes and the school day ended at 3.45pm.

However, this changed at the start of the 2007-8 school year,and the timetable now consists of 5 different periods, each an hour long, and 2 breaks- one lasting 20 minutes starting from 11:10 am and another lasting an hour for lunch at 1:30 pm with the school day finishing at 3.30pm.

8.50: Registration/ Assembly

9.10: Period 1 lesson

10.10: Period 2 lesson

11.10: Break (20 minutes)

11.30: Period 3 lesson

12.30: Period 4 lesson

1.30: Lunch (one hour)

2.30: Period 5 lesson

During exam periods, lunch and Period 4 switch in the timetable to allow for lunch before afternoon exams.

Facilities

Beaconsfield High School have a wide range of high quality facilities; both for sporting and academic hobbies. The school is equipped with three netball courts which are converted into tennis courts in the summer, a 400m athletics track, a fitness gym and a sports hall which was opened in 2005 and can be used for sports such as; indoor hockey, indoor netball, badminton, volleyball, gym, trampolining, indoor athletics and many more. Both the astroturf and sports hall have benefited the local community since clubs often hire out these facilities after 6pm.

Since the school is a recognised as a specialist language and technology college, these facilities are excellent. There is a language lab for students taking either French, German, Latin or Spanish and these are where the oral examinations take place in the summer. However, the school recently dropped the German language option and is only currently allowing students who join in the first year a choice of French, Spanish and Latin. Those students who decided to take Latin forward to GCSE level are expected to also take a modern language. Recently, the school changed around its system for taking language exams, unlike previous years the students will not be taking their languages a year early (year 10) and instead will follow the traditional system whereby students take language exams in year 11.

The school's newly opened sixth form building consists of a well equipped computer room and the library also provides computers as well as a 'study area' for students who wish to work in a silent and unobtrusive environment. All of the classrooms have interactive white boards.

Head Teacher

Penny Castagnoli became head teacher in 1995 and retired from her post in August 2009. Owain Johns, deputy head and the head of design and technology department was the acting head teacher although the school made a decision to employ Sally Jarrett who was offered the role and then stepped down following the controversy published in the Daily Mail Newspaper. From April 2012, Ms Annette France was appointed as head teacher, she retired from her post in 2015. Rachel Smith was appointed head teacher in April 2015 till current date.^[3]

Alumni

• Serena Evans, actress, and daughter of actor Tenniel Evans, and married to actor Daniel Flynn
• Lindsey Fallow, presenter from 1999-2000 of Tomorrow's World
• Sara Geater FRSA, Head of Production, Drama and Film at Channel 4 from 1987-97, Chief Executive from 2010-14 of Talkback Thames, and Chief Operating Officer since 2015 of All3Media
• Lesley Hobley, hockey player in the England team in the 2006 Commonwealth Games
• Stephanie Lowe, wife of Phillip Schofield
• Clare Thomas, actress
• Amelia Thorpe, Managing Director from 1989-2002 of Ebury Press
• Jane Treays, documentary maker
• Jane Woodhead (nee Angus), Building Societies Ombudsman (Office of Building Societies Ombudsman) from 1991-93

References

External links

• Department for Education Performance Tables 2011