6 MONTHS TO GO
We are now six months away from Whitcliffe Mount Business and Enterprise College opening as a new
11-16 school in September.
On a temporary basis the school will grow in size to accommodate younger children, but contrary to misinformed rumours this will not create a “super-sized” school. For about two years the school population will grow by about 200 from its normal size and will then settle back to a school of approximately 1250 pupils.
There has been a lot of activity this term as the school works in partnership with the Local Authority’s Project Board to ensure that changes are well managed and the school can continue to provide a good and improving educational provision for young people in the Cleckheaton, Gomersal and Birkenshaw area.
Exam results in the school have over recent years been rising more rapidly than the national average and our results to date plus estimates suggest that the school’s GCSE results this summer will be the best ever achieved in the school. Despite lots of transition work the school remains focused on providing excellent opportunities for our students, both in exam subjects and in extra-curricular opportunities.
We have now appointed 28 additional staff for next year, including a significant number of highly skilled teachers and support staff from the closing middle schools who will have the advantage of accompanying the children they currently work with, as they move to Whitcliffe Mount.
An extensive programme of staff training has already begun and is designed to ensure that all staff will be confident in working with the new age range of students. We have been very impressed by the commitment and enthusiasm of some of our new staff from the middle schools who are already getting involved in our Options Evening, the school play, Open Evening and even starting to plan school trips for next year.
The school has now agreed with the Local Authority a range of improvements to teaching spaces, dining facilities and recreational play areas on the school site for September.
We are forging very close links with our partner schools and staff from Whitcliffe Mount have attended all the Parents’ Evenings in the middle schools.
From September 2013 transfer to the high school at age 11 will take place from the new primary schools and we have visited all the primary schools in the area. Our Business and Enterprise team have hosted an event with children from 9 of the primary schools, developing their enterprise skills as they designed and built a new “Whitcliffe City”.
I am very excited by the prospect of opening the new 11-16 school in September. Re-organisation is hard work and causes anxiety for children and their parents but there are tremendous opportunities to improve the educational opportunities for all children in the area. Between the age of 4-16 children will only have the disruption of changing school once, they will transfer at the end of a national curriculum key stage, like most schools in the country and at Whitcliffe Mount we are very enthusiastic about working with children for five years from the age of 11.
John McGee
Headteacher
I am sure you will be aware that from September 2012 the Whitcliffe Mount pyramid of schools will change from a 3 tier to a 2 tier education system. From that date Whitcliffe Mount B & E College will take children in Year 7 from the age of 11, following the closure of the middle schools.
Choices for future school places for parents and carers of pupilscurrently in Year 6 and 7 at Birkenshaw Middle School Information has been sent to all parents and carers of pupils currently in Year 6 and 7 at Birkenshaw Middle School about choices for future secondary school places.
The Local Authority have started a statutory consultation process surrounding the revised proposals for the closure of Birkenshaw Middle School. It is proposed that the school will close in August 2013.
However, some parents of pupils at Birkenshaw Middle School have asked the Local Authority whether it would be possible for their child to transfer to secondary school in September 2012 at the same time as all the other pupils of the same age in the other three closing middle schools in the Whitcliffe Mount pyramid of schools.
If you would wish to pursue Option C (see below), you need to fill in your response sheet and hand it to the Head teacher, Mrs Jagger, by the last day of autumn term, Friday 16th December 2011*.
Option C
September 2012: Transfer to Y6 / Y7 at Whitcliffe Mount – Specialist Business & Enterprise College
From September 2012, Whitcliffe Mount - Specialist Business and Enterprise College will be the 11-16 school serving the area and the designated receiving school for all pupils in the Middle Schools that are closing. A place in year 6 / 7 in September 2012 has been reserved for all Middle School pupils who wish to transfer.