Wallingford School
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| Motto | Sending every person into the world able and qualified to play their full part in it |
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| Established | 1659 |
| Religion | None |
| Headteacher | Mr Nigel Willis |
| Founder | Walter Bigg |
| Specialism | Sports College |
| Location | St George's Road Wallingford Oxfordshire OX10 8HH England |
| Local authority | Oxfordshire |
| DfE URN | 123261 |
| Ofsted | Reports |
| Students | 1084 |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Ages | 11–18 |
| Houses | Newton, Shackleton, Faraday and Tennyson |
| Colours | Navy & Gold |
| Website | www.wallingford.oxon.sch.uk |
Coordinates: 51°36′20″N 1°07′38″W / 51.60551°N 1.12732°W
Wallingford School is a secondary school located in the town of Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England. It was founded by Walter Bigg in 1659 in association with the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, formally succeeding Wallingford Grammar School when it merged with Blackstone Secondary Modern in 1973.
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[edit] About
The school's objective is to "send every young person into the world able and qualified to play their full part" in it. This message is broadcast a lot around the school along with pictures of everyday activities around the school. These are in most, if not all the buildings around the school.
[edit] Headteacher
Mr Nigel Willis is current headteacher of the school. He joined in early 2005 succeeding the current head, who was temporarily Mr Doug Brown, however it was previously Mr Jerry Owens. According to the BBC league tables, the school has improved in the GCSE results since the all time low in 2005.
[edit] Buildings
There are a number of buildings and "blocks" that link up the school that are named after various famous people from Wallingford or past teachers at the school. The main blocks are:
- The Blackstone Building: with Geography, Art, The School Library and, more recently, the sixth form block.
- The Main Building: with Reception, English, The School Hall, the Canteen, The Old Gym, Design & Technology, ICT, and many admin rooms.
- The Kershaw Building: with Maths, Drama, Music and Modern Foreign Language.
- The Science Block (formally named as the 'Doug Brown Building': with Science and Technicians Offices.
- The Castle Leisure Centre (also known as 'The Castle'): for PE lessons and large assemblies.
In recent years, Wallingford School has put forward plans to purchase the Castle Leisure Centre from the current owners, SOLL, so the school can use the centre full-time and take over management of public sports events.
[edit] Disabled Access
The school has made an effort to make all of the site accessible. There is a lift in each building making all the upper floors accessible.
[edit] The school day
The school day consists of six 50 minute long lessons on Mondays to Fridays, finishing at 3.15pm and starting at 8.40am.
[edit] School council
The school council is composed of 14 student representatives. There are 2 reps from every year group, one girl and one boy, all the way from year 7 to year 13. These reps have to give speeches and are voted in by their whole year group.
There are also year council meetings, made up of 6 to 8 representatives, each elected by their tutor group.
[edit] Offsite passes
If students live within walking distance to the school (ie. within Wallingford) they are legible to claim a lunch pass meaning they are allowed to go back home during lunch times.
Sixth Formers are allowed to go offsite at lunchtimes.
Prefects in Year 11 are allowed offsite, and during the academic year, certain trusted Year 11s are appointed to be allowed to go offsite by teachers.
[edit] Gifted and talented
Gifted and Talented students are selected and take part in events and activities that are organized during the academic year. Two schemes from the 2007-2008 year included 'Nagty' and 'Shine'. Nagty was a newsletter for the gifted and talented students. Shine, which was implemented for GCSE students only, was a brand new scheme for gifted and talented students to improve upon 2 of their talented subjects which in the end would help increase the students overall GCSE grade.
[edit] Citizenship
Since 2006 the school has been running a citizenship class for year 9 students within Gifted and Talented. They spend one and a half hours per week working on citizenship, for one year for half a GCSE. To help with their coursework, they have hosted (4 so far) citizenship ceremonies hosted and organised entirely by the citizenship group. They are the only school in the country to do this.
[edit] Sixth form
Wallingford School features two parts - the secondary school, and a sixth form college which merge together to feature the same teachers, lesson structure, subjects, timetable, etc.
Sixth Form students study AS-Levels in Year 12 (age 16/17) and A-Levels in Year 13 (age 17/18). However starting in September 2008, there will be a small number of students in the sixth form in the so called "Pre A-Level" course that allows students who wanted to study A-Levels, but didn't get the grades at GCSE to do so, can spend a year studying five GCSE subjects to retake, and then continue with AS/A2 Levels at the sixth form.
Unlike the Years 7 - 11, sixth form students are not required to wear school uniform. They are also allowed to sign in and out of the school site at break and lunchtimes as they please.
