The Howard School, Kent

The Howard School
The Howard School
	File:Paint Howard School.jpg
Location
	Kent; England
Information
Type	Bi-lateral and Sixth Form
Locale	Rainham
Principal	Paul Morris
Number of students	approximately 1500
Website	http://www.thehowardschool.co.uk

The Howard School is the only Bi-lateral school in Kent and Rainham and one of the five bi-laterals in the whole of the United Kingdom.

A bi-lateral school is one where admission to the grammar school section is by 11 plus selection and admission to the high school section is non-selective. The school has around 1500 pupils, between the ages of 11-18. It is located in Derwent Way, Rainham. The school has Sports College status and is a foundation school. The current Principal is Paul Morris, who has been in his current post since September 2007. The school is located in Derwent Way, Rainham, and backs onto Rainham School for Girls. The school was named after Dorothy Howard who played a major part in the local community and was established in 1975 by amalgamating Rainham Boys Secondary School and Gillingham Boys Grammar School to form a bi-lateral school.

Current retinue

Principals

Since opening there have been five principals.

John Hicks: 1975 - 1987
Alan Jarrett: 1987 - 1997
Maurice Barry: 1997-2001
David Smith: 2002 - 2007
Paul Morris: current

History

The Howard School became a Grant Maintained School in 1994 when it left the control of Kent County Council. Following a change of Central Government it became a Foundation School in 1998. Although a Foundation School, the school works very closely with Medway Council who, since being set up in 1998 a Unitary Authority, control education in the Medway Towns. The school became a Specialist Sports College in 2007.

Vision statement

To enable students of all abilities to develop to their true potential.
To provide tolerance and respect for all cultures represented in the school.
To provide a challenging, interesting and well balanced curriculum catering for the range of abilities and needs of our students.
To strive to raise our standards of academic success.
To provide a safe, happy and caring working environment in which each student is valued and is able to develop his potential.
To have consistently high expectations relevant to the abilities of each student; to match those with high quality resources and learning strategies.
To develop in each student a sense of moral values in order to help prepare them for future responsibilities and opportunities.
To foster links with parents and the wider community.

To develop in students an understanding of themselves and enable them to become responsible citizens with a social, cultural, economic and political awareness

Lessons

Art

In Years 7, 8 and 9 you learn the basics of Art like how to draw a face/person and make a self portrait at the end of the module. You also learn about Aboriginal Art and art from different countries like Egypt and Mexico. Mexico is a very popular term with students and you produce a collage about the Day of the Dead festival.

In GCSE there are many styles of art which you can do. You can to normal Art but you can do Photography, Sculpture, Fine Art and Modern Art

Citizenship

You do Citizenship for all of your school life except for A-level. In Years 7, 8 and 9 it's all about being a good citizen, bullying, points of views, politics, drugs and capital punishment. When you do GCSE you go more in depth of these and get a broader amount of facts.

Drama

Drama is one of the most active lessons at Howard and is one of the children's favourites. It is an optional GCSE which you do as a BTEC which is worth four GCSEs. The department put on four shows a year, three with the music department and have a reputation for being some of the best school shows in Kent.

Last Few Musicals

Chicago (2004)
Blood Brothers (2005)
Bugsy Malone (2006)
The Rocker (2007) [Written by James Hetterley, shortened down as part of a show with segments)
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (2007)

Sports College status

The school has achieved Sports College status. Since gaining the Sports College status, the school has made plans to develop its facilities with extra financial input received from the government. Current Plans are to:

Build 5 A Side football pitches in the "Bowl Area" (Named after its geographical features.)
Build a Library (A past attempt at running a school library failed. The Library suffered vandalism and was converted into the "ELC" (Electronic Learning Centre) that exists today as the core of computer network.)

Gifted and Talented

Podcasting

The school has started up a pilot scheme under the Gifted and Talented Programme to get a fully fledged podcasting service up and running. The service is to be run by the students and supervised by Mr Ross (Head of Key stage 3 IT). Currently the year 11 and 10 students running the club are preparing the first podcast to be released March 2008. The podcast will be made available from the Howard School website as a downloadable MP3 file. The March 2008 installment will include:

Interview with the Principal Mr Paul Morris (Interview has been recorded and is now under electronic editing)
Interview with Mr Ward on Table Tennis Centre (Interview pending on Mr Ward's reply to invatation.)

Facilities

The Howard School has a large range of facilities. The very large 36 acre campus encompasses:-

Two Gymnasia
A Sports Hall
Table Tennis Centre with twelve full size tables
Ten five-a-side all weather floodlit football pitches (complete April 08)
Four football pitches
Two rugby pitches
Athletics track
Learning Resource Centre (complete July 08)
‘E’ Learning Centre (E - Electronic)
Over 450 computers in rooms around the school
130 seater theatre
Three canteens
Sixth Form Centre
Student Services building
Music suite
Two drama studios
Eleven science laboratories
Practical Crafts area
Art studios
Large hall (seating for 350) equipped with performance stage, 3 Spot-light belts, electronic curtains and advanced sound system
Eight Technology rooms (five workshops and three graphics rooms)
Playgrounds
Parking for 250 cars

Howard Computer Network

IT Department Staff:

IT technician: James
Mr Pryke - Head of IT department
Mr Ross - Owns the ELC #1 Classroom
Other unidentified IT teachers

Hardware:

The school's IT department has opted to use RM computers (RM - Research Machines)
The school's newest RM's are the RM ONE series See RM website for specifications. These machines are of compact and upright design (Like the Sony Playstation 2 Entertainment Console). The compact design comes with LCD displays, optical mice, and USB 2.0 functionality (used mainly to connect USB Flash Drives). The RMs should ideally would have Fire Port Capabilities however the IT department has not activated/installed the necessary drivers yet.

Software:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional [Service Pack Unknown]
Microsoft Office 2007 [Editions Unknown] (Microsoft Outlook is unoperational)
Macromedia Studio [Version Unknown]

Internet:

The Howard School Network gains internet Access through the Medway Council's eLearning Internet Gateway. The Medway Council provide a restricted internet access to the Howard School network. The strict content filtering includes: Myspace, Youtube, Adult Sites, [Unsafe Google Search], game websites and proxy servers (used by students to "tunnel through" the Medway Proxy Server. (Although students are constantly finding new undiscovered and therefore unbanned websites to play on.)

E-Portal:

The school network hosts a service for staff called "E-portal" (Electronic Portal). This service contains data on all students attending the school on an encrypted database. The service acts as a tool for teaching staff needing to share any concerns on students (Behaviour Concerns, Pending Punishments, Exclusions)

Publicity

The school has recently come under fire from the BBC South East News, Kent Radio Services and the 'Have I Got News For You' comedy television show. Accusations of bullying Management Problems and irresponsible commenting on students have publicly been made.

The most recent addition to the school's publicity came on Friday 15 February 2008 when it emerged that a student died on a school hiking trip.

School map

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