The Gregg School -...The Professional Journal for Management & Staff
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January 2015 Chair Head Bursar Registrar Staffroom School Office ...the professional journal for Management & Staff www.elements-europe.com/schoolsolutions Our front page pictures In this issue... Innovative Off-Site Building Solutions Target Error! 05 ~ ‘independent schools are not the enemy’ Independent/State Schools Cooperation 16 ~ 18 ~ in the wake of Tristram Hunt Balancing Academic standards 06 ~ with character development New Science Centre The new £7m Science Centre at St Helen and St With the Girls’ Schools Association 08 ~ 11 Katharine school, Oxfordshire, has been officially ~ at their annual conference opened by world-renowned geneticist, Professor Kay Davies CBE, What Does Technology Bring 14 Professor Davies, of the University of Oxford’s ~ to the Humanities classroom? Hertford College, spoke to the assembled audience of visitors, girls and staff before unveiling the official plaque for the new Centre Should Stories of Suffering Be Told 22 which boasts 13 laboratories. ~ to young children? Each science, Biology, Chemistry and Physics has four new laboratories arranged over three Profile 24 ~ 25 subject specific floors. Break out areas on each What ~ in conversation with Richard Brown we do floor, and the resources available in them, such as journals, magazines and touch screens, allow Creating Great Spaces for Bright Futures for independent study, collaboration and small Outdoor Learning 42 group work and discussion. The three storey ~ a breath of fresh air! Elements Europe is a leading UK off-site building glass atrium provides an event space for whole School events including seminars, lectures and solutions specialist and is a part of The Pickstock Group outreach activities. Pioneering the new IELTS qualification 43 of companies, an organisation with revenues of over Professor Davies also toured the new Centre ~ rolling out the first course £200 million. along with other guests and as well as seeing the facilities, spoke to students about the impact the Centre was already making, their science studies Plus Our mission is to create innovative off-site solutions and their future careers. New tower on skyline 04 for the built environment. We do this by combining our Acting Headteacher Mrs Bernadette Stubley said: Computer science app hits iTunes heights 07 “Over two thirds of our girls in the Sixth Form Lessons from a first inspection 12 indepth knowledge of construction with our expertise in study a STEM subject. The strong take-up of Digital learning conference ~ diary date 20 off-site manufacturing, to deliver high quality products science subjects isn’t pushed by teachers, but we do think that as we are an all-girls school Changing Faces... Changing Places... 26 ~ 27 to our clients. that there is less of a preconception as to what College to launch Lower School 27 subjects they should take”. Productions ~ music & drama 28 ~ 30 We have developed standardised innovative designs that Catering Focus Feature 31 ~ 35 Sport 36 ~ 39 TECHNICAL meet the EFA baseline design requirements using our Truce memorial Liability Insurance – just how much is enough? 40 ~ 41 SOLUTIONS A specially commissioned stained glass volumetric products. window, installed in Loretto School’s Chapel to New Products & Services; The Digest 44 ~ 46 > Turnkey Design & Build commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1914 Heads Hunted 47 Christmas Truce, has been unveiled by relatives of > CAD/CAM Capability Why British and German officers involved. Is Your School Mentioned? See page 47 for an A~Z listing Our choose Full story page 21 Contact Us; Editorial Advisory Board; Key Personnel; Subscription Offer ~ page 47 Service us? > BIM Modelling LOOKING TO BUY OR SELL A SCHOOL OR NURSERY > Project Management > Trusted Partner to the > Full Design Service Education Sector > Manufacturing > Quality Product & National SchoolTransfer www.elements-europe.com/schoolsolutions > Delivery Service For a Professional – Confidential Service > Construction > Experienced 01691 656 591 www.nationalschooltransfer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)1980 621251 [email protected] FIND YOUR SOLUTION TODAY Independent Schools Magazine 3 Part of << Awarded Round Square Target Error: independent membership Beaconhurst School, near schools are not the enemy Stirling, has been named a member of Round Square - the world-wide association of It seems in recent weeks that the independent sector has been under a sustained attack, not just schools with 146 members across from outside but even from within, with some headteachers airing their concerns about “fees five continents. The Regional European Status time bombs” and “Russian oligarchs” along with the broadsides from Tristram Hunt et al on the award, which followed a strict ‘unfairness’ of charitable status. assessment, offers access to a network of member schools and Graeme May, Deputy Head Academic at Abingdon School, Oxfordshire, responds... the chance for international student and teacher exchanges. Attacks on independent schools burden on national resources. that parents make big sacrifices hardship grants was in excess of are not new, of course, and ending Not all independents are making to send their children down the £300m, representing almost 40,000 Pupils also have the opportunity charitable status has long been the fantastic surpluses; in fact many of independent route, but this has children, pretty much matching to take part in European and cri de coeur of those who would them are operating very close to the always been the case. I don’t think the high point of the Assisted international community service really rather the independent sector financial line and barely breaking there was ever a time when sending Places Scheme at its peak in 1998 projects and conferences. did not exist at all. Tristram Hunt even. It needs to be remembered your child to an independent didn’t – children once supported by the Newest addition to The school’s Round Square estimates that business rates relief that independent schools are not involve a good deal of thought and state but now supported by the representative, Assistant Head add up to around £147m per year vast multi-national corporations, belt-tightening for the majority. schools themselves. Bursary funds Dawn Haughton, is delighted by which may seem a significant making huge profits for the There has been some hysterical are created by the very thing that the news. She said: “It’s fantastic amount at first, even in these days benefit of their shareholders; nonsense in the press about the critics of ‘privilege’ and ‘elitism’ city skyline ~ just to be named a member of this when we are used to hearing about neither do most of them have sector becoming the finishing want – a redistribution of wealth renowned organisation and the deficits running into the billions. great foundations at their centre schools for Russian oligarchs, but – because it’s the people who can opportunities now afforded the However, what’s sometimes providing an income from amassed the truth is that the number of afford to pay who are subsidising Beaconhurst community are forgotten in all the outrage about capital. The other consequence is foreign nationals coming from those who can’t. There is much 125 years late! this subsidy is what the state is that some independents would be much more work to be done here endless. It extends our network abroad to independent schools 146 times as we can access the getting for its investment. And forced to charge yet higher fees in is dwarfed by the UK pupils: the but it’s already embedded in the resources of member schools that return is huge. By removing order to keep going, making them ISC recently put the number at mission of independent schools to Brighton College has launched a new city landmark the arch of the entranceway to the school dressed as a around the world.” something in the region of 615,000 even more exclusive. just 24,000 compared with the be doing this. with the unveiling of its grand gatehouse tower at its town crier on a horse and cart. He conducted a hilarious children from the government’s And so to the “fees time bomb” 615,000 UK pupils mentioned Attacking independent schools Round Square schools are entrance – finally built after a 125-year delay. blessing of the tower with the help of the girls and educational books, the saving argument. That fees have been before. And not many of those is never going to be the answer dedicated to promoting personal The tower, which has been named Cairns Tower after boys of the school. The entire school community sang to the nation is conservatively rising in excess of inflation is a fact 24,000 have oligarch parents, I to what’s wrong with education development, responsibility, the school’s current headmaster Richard Cairns, was a specially-composed chant and did a dance to honour calculated at £3bn and that’s using and with that should come the think. Almost without exception, in the UK: you don’t make the environmental stewardship and supposed to be the crowning glory of architect Sir and welcome the tower. the lowest estimation of what it conclusion that the independent the children I have come across weak strong by weakening the international understanding Thomas Graham Jackson’s late 19th century additions The climax of the event was the removal of the blue costs to educate a child in the state sector must be choking off its own in the seven independent schools strong. You might close the gap among students. to Brighton College (which was built in 1845) but a cloth to reveal the tower in all its glory. sector. By anyone’s reckoning, supply. But that doesn’t appear I have taught in and the many by doing that, making things There are 12 Round Square putting in a measly £147m to more I have visited, have been from appear more equal, but at the loss shortage of funds meant his splendid creation was A facet of the new tower is the Smith of Derby clock on to be happening: the proportion schools across the UK.