Charters News September 2015

A warm welcome back to school for all our students, staff

and parents/carers. We would like to begin by congratu-

lating our Year 11 and Year 13 students from the last

academic year on their excellent examination results.

This year’s ‘A’ level results maintained the high standards

of the last few years with 54% of students gaining A*-B

including a significant number of students (26%) gaining

A*/A grades. These results have given our Year 13 co-

hort the opportunity for their next move whether it be to

university, work or a ‘gap year’; and we look forward to

celebrating their success at Presentation Evening on

Thursday 10 September 2015.

Charters has established itself over a period of time as

one of the best performing state schools in the country

when it comes to GCSE results; and this year’s perfor-

mance is in line with this successful trend. Whilst there

are still some results to be processed, the headline

measure of 5 A*-C grades (including English and Mathe-

matics) stands at 79.3% - a very strong outcome and one

that may improve further.

We are particularly proud of our Year 11 students and

their teachers as Key Stage 4 courses and qualifications

continue to be subject to change and yet we have main-

tained our high standards.

We now await the value added analyses of ‘A’ level and

GCSE results from Ofsted later in the year which should

provide further evidence of our students’ achievement.

We will, of course, report back on these analyses when

they are made available.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

Representatives of our strong Sixth Form. Here, from L to R, are Lizzy Hardy who is going on to study Jurisprudence at Oxford;

Hannah Carney, Oriental Studies at Oxford and Kasia Ruzkowski who will study French with Italian at Cambridge.

If the August examination results provide the final judge-

ment on the last academic year, there is still so much

more that was achieved by our students and staff that is

worth reflecting upon.

Our students have continued to flourish in several areas

including the Arts with last November’s production of

‘Summer Holiday’ a particular highlight, and in

sport where we had numerous successes at Regional,

County and District levels. At National level we were very

proud of our U16 Boys Football team who reached the

last 16 of the National Cup and of our Junior Girls Cross

Country team who came second in the National Cross

Country Cup.

As the Co-Headteachers of the school, part of our respon-

sibility, with the Governors and senior school leaders, is

to evaluate all aspects of our performance so that we can

identify what we need to do to maintain all the good

things about the school and improve those areas that

need further attention. We are currently producing a re-

port for parents on the key areas of the school’s work

that Ofsted would focus on if we were inspected; and a

copy of this year’s self evaluation report to parents will

soon be available on the website.

As always at this time of year, we are planning our re-

sponse to the challenges we will face over the next

twelve months. These are some of the focal points

which may be of particular interest to parents:

Learning and Curriculum

Allowing students to use their mobile devices in

lessons

Trimming down our Post-16 course choices to

make efficiency savings

Introducing the new style GCSE and A-Level cours-

es this year and next year.

Personnel

Re-doubling our efforts to recruit the best teach-

ers, particularly in the shortage subjects of Maths

and Science

Recruiting a greater number of volunteers from our

parents/carers and friends of Charters School to

run or assist in curricular, extra-curricular or sup-

port activities.

Students and Pastoral Care

Planning the introduction of a new progress moni-

toring system in Years 7-9 in September 2016

Embedding ‘The Edge’ scheme (see below).

Community

Engaging the local authority and parents in the on-

going school expansion debate

Taking a leading role in establishing a local net-

work of cycleways

Capital

Replacement of the existing Mathematics block

accommodation

Conversion of our oil burners to natural gas.

We continue to use our motto ‘Unity, Respect, Excel-

lence’ to emphasise the core values and qualities that

we want Charters’ students to embody, and with this in

mind, this year, we have created and launched ‘The

Edge’.

We have always believed that developing rounded indi-

viduals who are stand-out candidates for future employ-

ment is not just a matter of providing an impressive aca-

demic profile. The ‘soft’ skills, qualities and characteris-

tics, are just as and, many would say, more important.

Whilst our Sports College legacy and opportunities out-

side the curriculum, visiting Tirabad, for example, give

Charters’ students a head start, we believe that The

Edge will incentivise and inspire all our students to un-

dertake self-development activities within and alongside

Our highly successful U16 Boys Football team

One of many enjoyable scenes from “Summer Holiday”

their academic curriculum, as well as outside the school

setting.

It does this by:

Providing a manageable way of capturing in a be-

spoke on-line application what students may al-

ready do to develop their Leadership, Organisation,

Resilience, Initiative and Communication and re-

cording their self-reflection. These five attributes

were chosen for simplicity’s sake and to align the

virtues of Character Education with employability

skills.

Providing a framework for developing these attrib-

utes over an extended period (age 7-19) with sup-

port from school so that young people are im-

mersed in the language and culture of self-

development.

Awarding a digibadge, which will be recognised by

industry as a quality mark. Uploaded to a CV, the

potential employer can open the digibadge, view

the student’s activity programme and read their

summary statement on completion of each level.

At Apprentice and Graduate level the Edge is endorsed by

the NCFE national awarding body. At Masters level it is

accredited and formally certificated.

A Masters level student might have for instance:

Leadership - Taken responsibility for running a Pri-

mary School Cross-country Club alongside a mem-

ber of staff

Organisation - Organised a staff social media train-

ing programme

Resilience - Completed a national long distance

path

Initiative - Volunteered to read and record newspa-

pers for the blind over a 12 month period

Communication - Created a set of resources

(podcasts, blogs, videos, revision guides) on a sub-

ject topic to share with his or her peers to aid revi-

sion.

The Masters level will be awarded at Pass, Merit or Dis-

tinction based on a viva in front of a panel of representa-

tives from the examination board, business, industry and

the community at the end of the course.

For decades, schools have been looking for ways to

achieve these aims and our idea has now been embed-

ded by over 250 schools nationwide who, like us, are

part of the PiXL network. If you would like more infor-

mation, click here and scroll down to The Edge.

And now to the elephant in the room….. over the next

few years, we will have significantly less money to run

the school. This year, the continuing drop in funding for

Sixth Formers (and we have 450 students in our Sixth

Form) and the rather abrupt decision to take additional

money from school budgets by increasing the employ-

er’s teacher pension costs and national insurance costs,

mean that we have to find, approximately, £600,000-

worth of savings this year.

Please be assured that we, as the leaders of the school,

are going to meet these challenges head on. Our newly

appointed Development Team are already building net-

works with alumni and with the local community and

they will also be launching some new initiatives which

will provide opportunities for everyone to play a part in

guaranteeing the future success of our great school.

Developing leadership skills in our students:

Year 9 Aspiring Young Leaders programme 2015

One of Charters School’s many successes in 2014-2015,

the Junior Girls Cross Country team, who came second in

the National Championships.

Creating opportunities outside the classroom at Tirabad

Charters Connect

The alumni society of Charters School

It’s been a busy year for Charters Connect. In January the

school appointed Linda Stacey as Development Manager

and Alan Carr as Development Ambassador to raise the

profile of the school in the local community, to forge part-

nerships with local individuals and businesses and to

help with the fundraising that’s essential to maintaining

Charters School as a centre of excellence. Charters Con-

nect is an essential part of this development plan. It is for

alumni and for friends of the school: parents of present

and past students, local people, local businesses and so

on. Join us on Facebook, on Linkedin and on Twitter, or

email us at cc@chartersschool.org.uk and get involved.

The school needs people like you!

This is what we’ve been up to in the last year:

The September 2014 prize giving ceremony gave us the

chance to welcome our newest alumni. In this photo,

from left to right, are: Verity Turner, Clodagh Leonard,

Scott Marshall, Miles De’Arth, Clare Killian, Laura Webbe

and Kate Deans with TV and stage actress Helen Schle-

singer (Slater), who was one of the first Charters’ stu-

dents to study at Oxford University.

In May, we hosted a ‘Now we are (about) 40!’ event for

alumni born in (or around) 1975.

Past staff and students had fun in the Durning Room,

looking at old photos and sharing stories over a glass or

two of wine and some tasty nibbles.

And, more recently, we welcomed back the Class of

1963.

If you’d like a reunion for your year, let us know and we’ll

help you contact students and staff from your year.

The school is also keen to hear from alumni who’d like to

share their experiences of the world of work with the cur-

rent sixth form. This term, Hugh Robertson (class of

1976) and Alison Clements (class of 1990) came in to

talk to 6th formers about their careers and to offer tips for

the future. If you have a story to share, please get in con-

tact with us. We’d love to hear from you.

In May, Charters Connect received a call from local man,

Derry Sharman (Class of 1970) who asked if he could

look round the school. Richard Pilgrim was delighted to

oblige and four students from the 1960s were taken on a

tour of the school followed by an opportunity to look at

old photographs and registers from their time at Charters.

We now have another tour planned for Friday 20 Novem-

ber 2015 so phone the school or contact us at

cc@chartersschool.org.uk if you’d like to come along.

We’re planning ahead too, to make sure we don’t lose

touch with our latest leavers. Ruth Matthews (Class of

2015) has created a Facebook group for her year group

so that they can organise get-togethers whenever they

like.