St Catherine's College, Eastbourne

The Bishop Bell Church of England Mathematics and Computing Specialist School
File:Bishop Bell School logo.png
Address
Priory Road Eastbourne , East Sussex , BN23 7EJ England
Information
Type	Voluntary aided school
Motto	Aiming for Excellence, Believing in Partnership, Caring for Quality
Religious affiliation(s)	Church of England
Founder	Bishop George Bell
Local authority	East Sussex
Specialist	Maths and Computing College
Department for Education URN	114613 Tables
Ofsted	Reports
Executive Headteacher	Terry Boatwright
Head of School	John Ross
Gender	Coeducational
Age	(3–5) to (11–18)
Enrollment	1040
Website	http://www.bishopbell.e-sussex.sch.uk/

The Bishop Bell School (full title: The Bishop Bell Church of England Mathematics & Computing Specialist School) is a voluntary aided coeducational secondary, Church of England 11–16 voluntary aided school situated on the south coast of England in Eastbourne. The school has Specialist Mathematics and Computing College status.

The school offers a post-16 (sixth form) college and has an on-site nursery (3–5 years old).

Overview

Mission statement

This school aims, within the Christian ethos of our foundation, recognising each person's supreme value and working in active partnership with parents, church and community: to provide high quality education based on Christian care; to promote innovative excellence in Mathematics and Computing; to develop everyone's potential academically, socially and spiritually; and to equip all for citizenship in our technological society.

History

Formerly Bedewell School on Whitley Road, Eastbourne, (the town's Fire Station now stands on the old site) it was reopened in its current location in Priory Road in 1958 by the eponymous Bishop Bell, of whom there is a painting in the school. The old site was commemorated with the addition of a Science and Technology building across the road from the main site, which is named Bedewell. The two sites are joined by a skywalk which cost £800,000 in 2004, replacing an outdoor metal bridge which had been deemed impractical.

There have been several ecclesiastical visits from Bishops and members of the Christian faith. The school has had visits from the Quicken Trust, a Christian organisation which works with people in Kabubu, Africa. Bishop Bell has links with Schlenker Secondary school from Freetown, Sierra Leone, within which it helped to implement an IT centre in 2008. The Global Awareness Group has been visited by Nigel Waterson MP.

Performance

Following a period of poor performance, the school's educational achievement improved when Terry Boatwright became head teacher in 1995. There was an increase in pupils achieving 5 A*-C grade GCSEs, which rose for eleven consecutive years. By 1999 it was one of the top improving schools in the country; this was attributed to Mr. Boatwright by the local MP. By 2006 the school was oversubscribed.

Uniform

The uniform consists of a black blazer bearing the Bishop Bell mitre, a tie also bearing the mitre, to be worn with a white shirt and black trousers or skirt. Pupils wear black shoes with no high heels or trainers, except, of course, during physically active subjects, in which trainers are permitted. Instead of the blazer, shirt and tie combination, Year 11 is allowed to wear a specified colour of polo shirt, with a matching sweatshirt available.

Curriculum

The school educates students from Year 7 through to Year 11, after which they may continue their education within limited post-16 positions in ICT and the school nursery. The school offers pupils a range of voluntary and compulsory GCSE subjects which are taken from Year 9 to Year 11. This is a change from the previous academic year (2007–2008) in which the school started GCSEs at Year 10, with pupils deciding their subject choices the year before.

The school educates all of its pupils in Citizenship and Personal, Social and Health Education. English, Mathematics and Science, the core subjects, are taught to all students throughout the entirety of the pupils' education at the school. The arts and foreign languages are optional as GCSEs in the upper school.

School day

The day comprises five one-hour periods, with breaks at 11.15 and 1.40. Mondays are shorter than the rest by twenty minutes to allow for pupil mentoring meetings at the end of the day.

Once every term (of which there are six in an academic year) there is an 'Academic Development Day' in which the school is divided up to partake in single subjects for the entire day. This time may be used to plan school trips, or sports days, or to complete coursework in the upper school.

Global Awareness group

This group has been active in many areas of modern ethical concern, including fairtrade goods and global education, for example the 'Send my friend to school' campaign and the subsequent 'My friend needs a teacher' campaign. The group undertook to make the school a 'fairtrade school' by encouraging fair trade use within the school; in 2009, they succeeded.

Child sexual abuse

The school has been at the centre of three major child safeguarding problems, including a child sexual abuse scandal:

• In February 2009, teaching assistant Robert Healy was jailed for seven years after he admitted grooming two girls using the social networking site Bebo. He admitted having sex three times with the younger girl between October and December 2007 and seven times with the older girl between February and April 2008.
• Canon Gordon Rideout was allowed to remain chair of the school governors for more than a year despite having being suspended by the Church of England following a Criminal Records Bureau check and despite the school being aware. Rideout was jailed for 10 years in May 2013 for abusing 36 vulnerable girls and boys at a now closed Barnardo's home in Crawley, West Sussex, over a four-year period between the 1960s and 1970s.
• In September 2012, maths teacher Jeremy Forrest was arrested in Bordeaux, France, and subsequently charged by Sussex Police with the abduction of a 15-year-old female pupil. He was found guilty in June 2013 and jailed for 5 and a half years. The judge said that Forrest had been repeatedly warned by colleagues but had lied to them and had been motivated by self-interest. Although a review published in April 2013 did not find evidence of "any significant or systemic failings in safeguarding" following the Forrest verdict, there were calls for headteacher Terry Boatwright to be sacked.