14 May 2008

Guilsborough Technology College Status

Associate Sponsors – Roll of  Honour

TCS Targets

TCS Activities and Pictures

GUILSBOROUGH TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE STATUS

As a specialist Technology college from 1998 we have focussed strongly on our target subjects, whilst continuing to meet the wider curriculum demands of a rural comprehensive school, sole provider in our extensive catchment area. Guilsborough is 'Striving for Excellence'. This mission statement underpins our whole approach to learning and we aim to be a centre of technological excellence, exploring and developing new techniques in education, using external links to emphasise the practical applications and importance of the subjects. Within our mission statement we articulate our moral ethos with 10 ‘pillars of wisdom' which emphasise our commitment to the education of the whole child, providing a firm basis for addressing the Every Child Matters agenda.

Our status as a Technology College has enabled us to:

•  Make significant investment in all specialist subjects and in ICT provision across the school

•  Focus on specialist subjects strongly in the post-16 offer in our popular and successful Sixth Form

•  Create a strong and inclusive enrichment programme involving our associate sponsors and partner schools

•  Create an intranet and website which are key resources for independent learning and enable us to share extensive resources and different learning approaches within and beyond the school with parents and other partners

•  Create a culture where students have the knowledge and skills to tackle the technological challenges they will meet in life

The strong development focus in TC subjects has created young leaders who have impact across the school in the development of a culture of learning, leading innovative approaches to assessment, inclusion, teaching and learning and curriculum development, enriched by up to date technological applications. Our key focus is our commitment to becoming an e-confident school, using technology to overcome our isolated rural situation and be the centre of a learning community. We have a solid ICT infrastructure and an increasingly high level of student skills. Staff skills are good and innovative ICT-supported work goes on in many departments, often involving our web-based resources. We are working towards fully embedded ICT delivery consistently across the curriculum.

Guilsborough offers a wide range of enrichment activities within the Technology College subjects.

Science and Technology at Work days for Year 10 students take place each year/

Technology run a Year 10 Design Challenge Day and an annual sponsored enrichment day together with Danetre and Moulton schools for Year 10 and Sixth form students.

Younger students can join Technology Club with Young Engineers competitions.

Design Technology Sixth form students can take part in careers conference for students across SWAN. The department frequently enters design competitions – one of our students recently won a national competition for a Belt Up School Kids logo to go on buses!

The Maths department takes part in the UKMT Maths Challenges, Junior, Intermediate and Senior individual challenges and Team challenge, with lots of success. The Maths Puzzle Challenge day is for Year 7 students working with Year 6s and they also run Maths in Motion Jaguar Cars F1 Challenge with Year 7 students ~(East Midlands Final)

Fantasy Football League – popular with staff too! Successmaker programmes and summer schools support students who struggle with Maths

The ICT department offers Saturday morning sessions for Year 6 students, a residential project at Kingswood for Year 9 studnets and works with the Northampton Learning Network on A level coursework projects.

All subjects run a wide range of after school extra sessions to meet student needs at all levels and these are supported by homework club, run by the Learning Centre Manager

Expanded Curriculum Provision

As a Technology College we are strongly committed to Technology for all students and we are constantly seeking ways to extend and improve provision in all four key subject areas. For the more able we offer KS5 AEA extension awards, further maths, STEPs papers (Oxbridge entrance) and we are introducing an additional statistics GCSE in Year 10. We have strong college link courses with Northampton , Moulton and Rugby Colleges in Construction and Catering and are now looking for ways to deliver these on site here at Guilsborough to enable more students to access them.

Some Key Activities in our Technology Subjects which lead whole-school development:

Maths and DT - leading Assessment for Learning developments: trialled e-marking systems now adopted whole school, with strong target setting linked to data, supported by behaviour tracking system (STAMP and Traffic lights, leading to intervention). Students and staff working together with parents through tutor-parent day on agreed targets

Maths - leading professional development on u se of Interactive Whiteboards and electronic voting system. Lead teacher provides training and support whole school Early entry GCSE less able enables 96% students achieve 5 GCSE including English and Maths.

Numeracy Co-ordinator - leads effective Numeracy programme.

Maths and Science - Lead Teachers lead professional development for Teaching and Learning across the school, VAK, Multiple Intelligences, Philosophy for children; Student programme taught by Science staff initially, now tutors trained to deliver.

Parent Workshops in curriculum areas and on teaching and learning styles increase parent awareness of learning styles, raised achievement and enjoyment at KS3

Literacy co-ordinator is a Science teacher who has developed a focus on writing frames and led training whole school on their implementation

DT - GCSE course begun in Year 9 leading to increased success in coursework. New Textiles course now developed from KS4 to KS5 (new room equipped)

Whole school I CT investment in CPD and resources begun in TC subjects, developed whole school ,(Interactive Whiteboards in 20+ classrooms, data loggers, laptops for all staff, Successmaker , new Music Technology suite, Media Suite, school radio station, innovative use in Art) enables us to reach our target of e-confident school, with much greater access to technology for students throughout curriculum increases skills levels.

Internet and website developments – website and developing home-school links through internet has expanded into all curriculum areas (Sixth form and Geography are outstanding examples)

Work with Partner Schools

Technology College status has enabled us to become a focal point for partner schools and the wider community, actively working with all 11 partner primary schools on strong curriculum and enrichment programmes: transition projects in TC subjects and summer schools enhance inclusion and pastoral programme. An outreach teacher (1 day initially now increased to 2..5 days) was appointed to provide direct ICT teaching. Staff work together on link projects such as Maths Challenge, Puzzle Challenge, data logging and enrichment activities. TC initiatives have led to further initiatives with partner schools (SportsCo, Area Improvement Partnership, Arts events).

This work greatly improves students confidence at transition and enables specialist staff to help partners develop ICT skills and confidence, with access to the European Computer Driving Licence Training Programme for those interested. The programme ensures that all children in the smallest primary schools can have equal access to equipment and activities and guarantees them an inclusive baseline of experiences.

Projects with secondary partners :

Initial projects have expanded from work with Danetre and Moulton to work across the SWAN (South West Area Northants) loose ‘federation' of 11 schools. A strong professional development programme and events in Technology college subjects with our secondary partners, has led to a successful Networked Learning Community programme. We used this to develop websites and vocational resources. We have shared Professional development and planning at all levels, (Heads, Curriculum Deputies, SENCO, Bursars, TCS departments). SWAN are about to appoint a 14-19 Area Co-ordinator to enable further work on14-19 provision planning in line with LSC area audit, bidding to extend vocational provision in identified skills shortage areas

We also work closely with Northampton schools and businesses as part of Raising Standards Project and Vocational Pathways Initiative.

We are now developing strong links with a Northampton special school, Northgate. We are able to support them in specialist subject areas and we are able to use their expertise in teaching students with learning difficulties.

European Computer Driving Licence

The ECDL qualification covers a range of ICT themes and is internationally recognised. We subsidise courses and offer flexible patterns of training to our partners and the wider community – please contact the school for more details.

Future Plans

The school has just put in plans for the ‘third phase' of its technology college status to the DfES. They include targets to constantly improve standards across the school and in the Technology College subjects and to maintain and improve our enrichment programme.

Partner work with Primary schools will move up a level, with more input, a special programme for the gifted and talented students and a real focus on technical support with a full-time technician working within our partner schools. We hope to develop a very strong relationship with Northgate special school which can benefit students from both schools and we plan for will work together on a number of projects.

In the wider community we are intending to provide resources and training for local area Scout groups to enable scouts to gain ICT badges at all levels and their leaders to feel confident in continuing with this in the future. We intend to offer our ECDL training to a wider range of community groups.

Finally, we are developing a very special relationship with Invicta – a company which designs educational equipment. We are offering trialling processes for their research and development department and our student will benefit from involvement with a real-life design and make process and shared visits to and from the company.

Christine Staley

Headteacher

C2 Explain how you will extend and expand plans into years three and four of your specialist status.

A vital part of becoming  a Technology College is the support we receive from our sponsors and partners.  Without the support of our sponsors the Technology College status could not be sustained.  Here at Guilsborough we are fortunate to be involved with a large number of companies across this widespread rural area, who are keen to be involved with the school.  We would like to express our very sincere thanks to them for their involvement and support across a large number of events.

The list of sponsors can be downloaded here; this is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

This MS Excel spreadsheet contains the targets for the TCS bid.