Nunnery Wood High: School's bid to be even more special (From Worcester News)

Nunnery Wood High: School's bid to be even more special

12:06pm Monday 7th June 2010 in News By Claire Fry, @clairefryWN #WENews

A SUCCESSFUL Worcester school has placed a bid to have a second specialism which will help children secure jobs in the future.

Nunnery Wood High School will soon find out if it has been granted its second specialist status as part of a move from the Department for Education (DfE) to award high performing schools.

As previously reported in your Worcester News, Nunnery Wood High School, led by headteacher Alun Williams, was awarded high performing specialist schools (HPSS) status – and this title recognises it as being among the top 30 per cent of specialist schools in the country.

As a result the school will be given extra funding to help transform and raise standards at other schools by sharing its good practice, and has also meant it could choose an extra field in which to specialise.

Already a specialist science college, it was given the opportunity to choose between becoming a leading edge partnership programme (LEPP), SEN specialism or to choose a second curriculum specialism, such as languages, or maths and computing.

However, the school chose to apply to become an applied learning specialist college (ALS), where it will be leading the way in providing alternative qualifications, such as apprenticeships and employer- designed diplomas.

Mr Williams said: “We had to look at all the specialisms and how they would benefit a variety of people, including staff, students, parents and governors.

Across the main group of ones that we could choose it was interesting as there wasn’t one that was a clear favourite.”

However they decided the ALS would be of the greatest benefit to children in the school, as it would increase children’s employment skills.

“The parents felt that it would benefit the children the most,” he said.

“We couldn’t apply for science and were not allowed to apply for languages as we do not need two language colleges in Worcester. There isn’t an Applied Learning college in Worcester and I’m not sure there is even one in Worcestershire.”

Mr Williams said the specialism would help children with their learning skills.