Waingels College

Waingels College

Motto	Seeking quality in all
Type	Comprehensive community school
Principal	Ann Keane-Maher
Chair of Governors	Mike Reeves
Specialism	Maths and Computing College
Location	Waingels Road Woodley Berkshire RG5 4RF England
Local authority	Wokingham
DfE URN	110070
Ofsted	Reports
Staff	c.170
Students	c.1,470
Gender	Coeducational
Ages	11–18
Houses	Astor, Brunel, Da Vinci, Holmes, Rowling, Turing
Colours	Green Red Gold
Website	School website

Waingels College (previously Waingels Copse School) is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school located in Woodley, Reading, Berkshire, England. It has a population of 1,500 students but may rise due to overcrowding in the area and an appeals process which now has to take place. Over 400 people apply for entry annually, though there are only 270 places available (a rise from 240 in previous years). The school has specialist status as a Mathematics and Computing College.

Houses

In September 2006 the school was split into six houses. Each house has its own colour and is named after an inspirational role-model. Each house has a learning community, Red, Green and Gold which are seen on the uniform with a Red, Green or Gold collar around it and on the logo.

Name of house	Colour	Role Model
Astor	White	Nancy Astor, the first woman to sit as an MP in the UK.
Brunel	Green	Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer and creator of the Great Western Railway.
Da Vinci	Blue	Leonardo Da Vinci, the Italian scientist, inventor and artist.
Holmes	Red	Kelly Holmes, the Olympic gold medalist at middle distance.
Rowling	Yellow	J K Rowling the British author who created the Harry Potter series.
Turing	Black	Alan Turing, the British mathematician and cryptographer.

Until 2006 the school was split in to two 'houses', Wain and Gels. In the 1970s and 1980s the school had four houses named for local connections: Bader (house colour red), after the airman Douglas Bader who flew from the old Woodley airfield; Brunel (house colour yellow), the only survivor in the current line-up; Jerome (house colour blue), after the author Jerome K. Jerome who wrote about the nearby River Thames; and Miles (house colour green), after the Miles Aircraft company, once based at Woodley airfield.

The school was originally built back in 1970 to replace the old secondary modern school on Loddon Bridge Road, Rivermead Primary School, which is now a primary school. The school has been rebuilt (except for the blocks for Music, sports, ICT and Maths, which have been refurbished) and was completed in November 2011 at a cost of £31M.

Sports Day History

Sports days are held annually in Palmer Park. Before 2011, Years 7-9 were the only ones to compete, due to the Work Experience for Year 10, and Study Leave for Year 11. However, This has now come under dispute due to the fact Year 10s may no longer be going on Work Experience. Year 10s competing is currently undecided. Before sports day, year 9s the P.E. teachers select are chosen to be Sports day captains and they are in charge of finding people from their house (Rowling, Holmes, Turing etc.) and from different years to compete in the sports. Those not chosen to compete sit in the stands are cheer for their fellow students.

Sporting achievements

The P.E. department at Waingels encourages students to take part in many extracurricular sporting activities such as football. Their main rival is The Bulmershe School, located on the other side of Woodley, as it is a specialist Sports College. In 2010 Waingels College represented Berkshire in a rugby tournament competing against other counties. In 2012 the P.E staff and students are running a mile for sport relief.

Redevelopment

Waingels underwent a £31.1 million redevelopment of the whole school, this includes many classrooms and high-tech features. The project is now finished. All old buildings have been replaced apart from the newer Weaks Building and Maths block. There are now 4 buildings in total, the Community zone (A), with the 6th form common room and space, the canteen, reception, library and main hall, the Green zone (B), for science and maths, the Gold zone (C), for english, foreign languages and the arts including drama and music and practice rooms, and the Red zone (D, for humanities (History, geography, sociology, psychology) Business, economics and IT/Computer studies. In each building there are forum stairs, a set of giant steps for students to sit on at social times, assemblies and for teachers to hold lessons on.

Notable alumni

• James Henry – professional footballer (currently playing for Millwall F.C)
• Irwin Sparkes – musician (lead singer of The Hoosiers)
• Exit Ten – progressive metal band

External links

• Waingels official website
• Ofsted report
• Directgov school overview
• DfES statistics
• BBC report
• Schoolsfinder review