Trinity School, Newbury

Trinity School

Motto	Personal Excellence and Collective Responsibility
Established	1999
Type	Academy
Headteacher	Charlotte Wilson M.A. (Ed)
Location	Love Lane Shaw Newbury RG14 2DU Berkshire
Local authority	West Berkshire
DfE URN	131790 Tables
Ofsted	Reports
Students	850[1]
Gender	Co-Educational
Ages	11–18
Houses	Dragon, Griffin and Phoenix
Colours	green, blue, Yellow
Website	http://www.trinitynewbury.org

Trinity School is a co-educational secondary school with academy status in Newbury, Berkshire, England. The school opened in 1999 when two existing schools and one new school combined - hence the name Trinity. Trinity School caters for pupils between the ages of 11 and 18 and currently has approximately 900 students on roll.

Trinity School sits adjacent to Shaw House, a 16th-century mansion, completed in 1581. Shaw House is managed by West Berkshire council and is used as a conference venue and public attraction. The school has a Performing Arts specialist status – facilities for this area of the school include a suite of 20 iMacs, a drama studio, 2 dance studios, a recording studio, multiple practice rooms and a large costume store. It also has a close relationship with neighbouring company Vodafone.

In 2009 Trinity was placed on the Government’s National Challenge list and was ordered to improve or risk facing closure. Paul Dick, Headteacher at Kennet School, Thatcham became the Executive Headteacher, whilst Charlotte Wilson, Acting Headteacher at the time, became the Associate Headteacher. Charlotte Wilson was appointed as permanent Headteacher from January 2012 and Paul Dick returned to Kennet full-time to take up his former role of Headteacher. Fast forward to January 2014 and Trinity received a ‘Good’ rating from OFSTED.

On Friday 11th May 2012 the Governors voted for Trinity School to become an academy. Having academy status means the school is directly funded by central government and is independent of local government control. The school has the ability to set its own staff pay and conditions and can also change the lengths of its term and school days, as well as select its own curriculum.

Trinity has close links with its feeder primaries in the local area and in March 2013 Trinity sponsored Fir Tree Primary School, which also gained academy status. This formed the Newbury Academy Trust, a multi-academy trust, of which Charlotte Wilson is the Executive Headteacher.

The school has gone undergone a lot of refurbishment and new build works over recent years. In October 2011 a £4 million sports complex was opened, which includes a sports hall, a 40 station air-conditioned fitness club, run by an external company outside of school hours, an IT Suite containing 14 PCs, offices, changing rooms, a gymnasium and showers. In September 2012 the schools existing Sixth Form & Library underwent extensive refurbishment work to become the schools state-of-the-art Sixth Form centre, based on 3 floors. The new Sixth Form Centre includes four study rooms, equipped with IT facilities, a servery, a large open-plan student lounge and an office for the Sixth Form staff.

In the summer of 2015, more extensive refurbishment work took place. This included the creation of a new ASD Unit, a 15 place local authority resource for students on the Autistic Spectrum, in an area of the school which formerly housed 2 of the school’s IT Suites and office space. As a result, two of the school’s existing IT Suites had a complete overhaul and now house 30 PCs each and brand new 70” interactive SMART Boards. A new library is currently being built on the site and is due to be opened in February 2016.

Senior Leadership Team

The Senior Leadership Team at Trinity consists of seven members of staff. As of September 2015, the team comprises:

Houses

When pupils join Trinity School they are placed in one of three houses. The House system provides a pastoral structure for the pupils, giving them the sense of belonging to a group. Houses compete in activities, including sport, music, dance, drama and academic success, including House Point and Commendation totals at the end of each term.

Heads of House are supported by House Tutors. Tutors look after Tutor Groups of around 25-30 pupils and generally stay with the same Tutor Group from Year 27 through to Year 11 which enables both Pupils and Tutors to build up a rapport.

The three Houses are: Dragon (Blue), Griffin (Yellow) and Phoenix (Green).

House	Head of House	Badge
Dragon	Mrs Jo Whitford
Griffin	Mr Alistair Hirst
Phoenix	Mr Ed Collett

Heads of Year

Heads of Year are responsible for all the students in a year group. The table below shows the Heads of Year:

Sixth form

Trinity School has a sixth form, which pupils from the school and from surrounding schools attend. Trinity is one of the few schools in Berkshire which offers the Performing Arts Double award at A Level.

The sixth form centre is located below the library and provides a common room which is used as a socialising space, a study area containing a suite of networked computers and the sixth form office.

The leadership of the sixth form is shown in the table below:

Qualifications

BTEC

The school offers GCSE subjects that include mathematics and the DiDA (Diploma in Digital Applications). Since the school's opening in 1999, the GCSE grades have notably improved.

ACE Unit

The school has an ACE unit which specialises in aiding pupils with dyslexia and learning difficulties. Many pupils with dyslexia who been helped by ACE unit have gone on to universities across the country.

The ACE Unit is run by Gaynor Davies who is assisted by other members of staff. The Unit has two specialised classrooms, both containing computers which run software to aid the pupils with their learning. The unit also houses the ACE office.

Headteachers

Trinity School's past and present headteachers, since its establishment in 1999, are as follows:

Statistics

References

Coordinates: 51°24′47″N 1°19′12″W / 51.413°N 1.320°W / 51.413; -1.320