The Forest School, Horsham: Difference between revisions
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In 2004, the school achieved a 62% 5 A* - C pass rate, and a 100% 5 A* - G pass rate, for subjects resulting in a [[GCSE]] qualification. |
In 2004, the school achieved a 62% 5 A* - C pass rate, and a 100% 5 A* - G pass rate, for subjects resulting in a [[GCSE]] qualification. |
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In 2005 and 2006, the school continued its 100% A* - G pass rate. The 2005 A* - C pass rate was 66%, and the 2006 rate was 64%. |
In 2005 and 2006, the school continued its 100% A* - G pass rate. The 2005 A* - C pass rate was 66%, and the 2006 rate was 64%. This means that the school is getting worse and worse by the icklebit. |
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This school is out of order. The kids mess about by throwing jumpers down the loo. And it won the West Sussex Worst School of the Year Award in 1977,1983,1985,1991 ,1998,2001,2003 and again in 2006. |
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For another year, the school is oversubscribed. The amount of tutor groups per year group has expanded from 6 to 8 in just 2 years. It currently has 1035 students. |
For another year, the school is oversubscribed. The amount of tutor groups per year group has expanded from 6 to 8 in just 2 years. It currently has 1035 students. |
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Revision as of 02:01, 24 November 2006
You must add a |reason= parameter to this Cleanup template – replace it with {{Cleanup|November 2006|reason=<Fill reason here>}}, or remove the Cleanup template.
The Forest School is an all-boys secondary school in Horsham, West Sussex. It is a specialist school in Engineering and Business and Enterprise. The school's ex-headmaster Mr. J A Fadden left the school in July 2006, after many successful years with the school. Mrs J Godly is currently standing in as Acting Head, though interviews were held for the permanent position during the week beginning 13 November 2006. On Thursday 16 November 2006, an announcement was made that a new headteacher has been appointed. The new Headteacher is Ms Siobhan Denning, though it is currently unclear when she will be able to take up the post. Until such time that Ms Denning is able to do so, Mrs Godly will remain as the Acting Headteacher.
In 2004, the school achieved a 62% 5 A* - C pass rate, and a 100% 5 A* - G pass rate, for subjects resulting in a GCSE qualification. In 2005 and 2006, the school continued its 100% A* - G pass rate. The 2005 A* - C pass rate was 66%, and the 2006 rate was 64%. This means that the school is getting worse and worse by the icklebit.
This school is out of order. The kids mess about by throwing jumpers down the loo. And it won the West Sussex Worst School of the Year Award in 1977,1983,1985,1991 ,1998,2001,2003 and again in 2006.
For another year, the school is oversubscribed. The amount of tutor groups per year group has expanded from 6 to 8 in just 2 years. It currently has 1035 students.
The School Day
The general timetable of a day (excluding Wednesday) at this school is as follows:
8:30 Registration and Tutor Time
8:35 Assemblies (if appropriate)
8:55 - 9:55 Period 1
9:55 - 10:55 Period 2
10:55 - 11:15 Morning Break
11:15 - 12:15 Period 3
12:15 - 13:15 Period 4
13:15 - 13:50 Lunch Break
13:50 - 14:00 Afternoon Registration
14:00 - 15:00 Period 5
15:00 End of formal school day, start of informal after-school activities
On Wednesdays, lunch break and afternoon registration are moved forward one hour (and Period 4 is moved back to 1:00) to allow two continuous hours of Enrichment after lunch for Key Stage 4 pupils.(See Enrichment below)
Enrichment
Every Wednesday, the timetable changes slightly to allow for two hours after lunch in which Key Stage 4 pupils can have a session on Enrichment. At the start of the year, the pupils choose which Enrichment activities they wish to do each term. Such activities include Karate, Web Page Design, Duke of Edinburgh, Peer Tutoring, Psychology and many more. Many pupils also participate in off-site activities during this time, for example at local leisure centres in activities such as Squash, or in local businesses participating in a Work Experience placement.
Staff and Structure
The school recently restructured its management structure. This involved the merging of formerly separate departments into five curriculum teams. The current senior staff list is as follows:
Acting Head
Mis J Godly
Deputy Head
Currently Vacant
Senior Resources Manager
Mr G McIntyre
Assistant Heads
Mr D Kudelka
Mr D McIver
Mr G Good
Mr M England
Curriculum Team Leaders
Mr C Clarke- Technologies
Mrs A White - Communications
Mrs P Davis - Sciences
Mrs S Godley - Living, Lives and Ethics (incorporating Geography, History, PSE and RE)
Mr G Spackman - (Acting Team Leader) Activity and Aesthetics (incorporating PE, Drama, Music and Art)
Key Stage Co-ordinators
Mrs E Tattersall - Key Stage 3 Co-ordinator
Mr C Coulson - Key Stage 4 Co-ordinator
Home-School Liason Officers
Mr T Scott
Mr D Walker
School Houses
Pupils and staff (excluding the Headteacher) attending the Forest School are sorted into 4 Houses - Tudor (Yellow), Stuart (Green), York (Blue) or Lancaster (Red). Pupils with brothers already at the school are usually placed in the same house as their brothers. These houses compete with each other in an annual merit competition (merits are given for achievements or community work), in various sports events including Cross-Country and Sports Day. Each house has a staff member appointed as its head. The Heads of House are as follows:
Lancaster: Mr M Parsons
Tudor: Miss J Arduino
Stuart: Mr S McDermott
York: Mrs B Netrebasic-Saunders
Each year representatives from each house are chosen from each year group. House Captains are taken from Year 11. The 2006/07 House Captains are as follows:
Lancaster: Stephen Grout
Tudor: Ashley Watts
Stuart: Jaimie Ashley
York: Aidan Chase
Uniform and Dress Code
The school has a reputation for having a very strict dress code and hair policy consisting of:
- dark grey or black trousers
- plain white shirt (unless prefect)
- plain blue or black, socks and shoes
- school tie (with different varieties for each house, consisting of: Lightning Yellow for Tudor, Blood Red for Lancaster, Not-So-Sky Blue for York and Dead Grass Green for Stuart or plain blue with white stripes for prefects
- un-dyed hair unless it's any colour commonly found in a rainbow
- a black school sweat-shirt
Discipline
As part of the discipline structure at the school, a small number of temporary exclusions occur. Only on rare occasions do pupils get permanently excluded (but often pupils are moved or withdrawn from the school before this happens).
There are several internal methods of discipline in the school. For example, the school uses Report Cards which are issued to students who need to meet targets in lessons in general. The card must be checked in every lesson by the teacher, who will write a tick or a cross underneath the targets (there are usually three targets). There are 3 levels of Report Card, with Yellow being the least serious(Form Tutor), Blue being the most serious (Senior Staff Member) and Pink being in between (Key Stage Co-ordinator / Home-School Liason Officer).
Calendar of Events
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In a year at Forest, the following events are likely to happen at the following times:
September
Early September (1st-7th): Start of Autumn Term
Middle of September (2nd or 3rd week of term): Year 7 and Year 9 CATs
Late September: Year 7 Residential at Lodge Hill, Pulborough
October
Early October: Open Evening (usually held on a Wednesday evening)
October: Year 11 Parents' Evening
Late October: Half-Term break
November
Mid November: Enterprise Week
Mid November: Awards Evening
Late November: Year 10 Parents' Evening
December
Last week of Term: Carol Service (held at St. Mary's Church in Horsham)
Mid-Late December (16th-22nd): End of Term, Christmas Holidays begin
January
First Week of January: Spring Term Starts
Early January: Year 11 GCSE Mock Exams
Mid January: Year 9 Parents' Evening
February
Early February: Year 9 Curriculum Evening (for Option choices)
Late February: Half-Term Break
March
Mid March: Year 8 Parents' Evening (Though in 2007 it has been switched to May, with the Year 7 Parents' Evening in March)
Late March / Early April: End of Spring Term
April
Mid April / Late April: Start of Summer Term
May
For two weeks following the May Day Bank Holiday: Year 7/8/9/10 Exams
Mid-May: GCSEs Start and Year 11 Study Leave Begins
Late May: Year 7 Parents' Evening (in 2007 it will be held in March instead, see Year 8 Parents' Evening above)
Late May: Half-Term Break
June
Mid to Late June: End of GCSE exams
Late June: Field Events Finals
July
First Week of July: Activities Week (Year 7-9), Work Experience (Year 10)
Early July: Year 6 Induction Day
Mid July: Sports Day
Late July: End of Summer Term
A full and specific calendar may be found at the Forest School's website
Awards Evening
Around mid November, the Forest School holds an Awards Evening. The awards are given to pupils who have performed particularly well in curriculum subjects, and there are also awards given for gaining a certain number of merits. Previous Year 11s are also awarded special awards and trophies for various reasons. A Guest of Honour attends every year to present the awards. Speeches are also made by the Head teacher, the Head Boy and the Chairman of the Governors, as well as the Guest of Honour. Mr S Smith reads a prayer at the end of the evening. The prize for winning an award is £8 towards book(s) of the recipient's choice from Waterstone's.
Activities Week & Work Experience Week
In July each year, the entire school is brought off timetable for one week. Key Stage 3 pupils participate in a series of activities based on a specific, enterprise-related theme. For example, the Languages Department had pupils create foreign language posters for a space-themed resturant in Activities Week 2005 (the theme was Space-Enterprise). In Activities Week, pupils are placed in groups based on their Houses rather than ability or tutor group. The Activities Week "lessons" last 90 minutes rather than the usual 60, and there are three "lessons" each day rather than five.
Year 10 pupils spend the week at Work Experience placements within the community (the pupils can arrange their own placements or the school may organise one for them). Pupils are given a booklet in which to chart their progress in the placement and record key information, and all pupils are visited by a member of staff at some point during the week.
Prefects
Forest School is also known for its prefects which, under the guidance of the acting headmistress and the senior management staff, now play a vital role in the day-to-day running of the school. The most notable of these roles is carrying out duties during break and lunch times. There are several teams of Prefects, and each team is assigned to an area of the school, such as the Maths Department or the Canteen. In the current 2006/07 Year 11, there are more prefects than in any previous Forest Year 11. Before this academic year the prefects were easily identifiable for their maroon/red jumpers but this year, through popular demand, the school has opted for a sky-blue, long-sleeved shirt and a blue tie with white stripes and one Forest School crest, also in white.
Headboy: Will Clement
Deputy Headboy: Samuel Waizeneker
Senior Prefect Team: Mark Shaw, James Morrison, Will Hucker, Matthew Davies, David Potter, and Niall Gorton.
Business & Enterprise Centre
£1.5 million has been spent on a new Business and Enterprise centre. The Business and Enterprise Centre was officially opened by Mrs Godly and members of the local business community on Friday 13th October 2006. It comprises of 180 brand new PCs and it is used by Year 11 as a tutor base. Other features include a kitchen area and a conference / assembly hall. The school has also made the Centre available for hire by the general public, its vision being to use the BEC as a hub in the community.