“The good quality of leadership throughout the school is driving the development of teaching and learning…”
Ofsted Inspection Nov 2007
The Sound of Progress
(published in The West Sussex County Times - Friday 13th March 2009)
A conversation with Mr Keith Gardner, Premises Manager at Tanbridge House School, might be interrupted by the sudden whirr of a drill. The sound of progress is a feature at Tanbridge House School reflecting every member of staff’s commitment to the school’s drive towards outstanding status. “Environment is very important”, Mr Gardner, says. “The school needs a professional modern space that students and teachers can teach and learn in and treat with respect.”
But environment is just one important area. “The quality of teaching and learning are the most important” says Mr White, Headteacher. “I’ve introduced an ethos of good practice throughout the school to create consistency, from managing behaviour through to report writing.” Since Mr White arrived Tanbridge House has seen it’s highest ever GCSE results with 75% A*-C grades.
And an indication that the community’s perception of Tanbridge House is changing is that September 2009 will see the school oversubscribed for the first time in its recent history.
Another area of advancement is the schools progressive use of IT. Tanbridge House School has developed a virtual learning environment giving students access to learning outside of the classroom. The VLE enables students to work independently outside school by supplying them with the resources they need to revise, catch up on missed work, practice exams/tests etc and to undertake research to extend their subject knowledge. Simon Harding, Senior Assistant Headteacher, who joined Tanbridge House in September 2008, has been instrumental in the development of the school’s VLE system as well as overseeing a vast IT investment at Tanbridge since his arrival. Mr Harding, said: “My aim is to enhance the students’ learning by giving them and their families access to a range of new technologies.”
The school prides itself upon it’s spectrum of extra curriculum activities for students to engage in and be motivated by and following on from two very successful recent sell-out school drama productions performed at the Hawth Theatre in Crawley the students have just started Sweeney Todd rehearsals which they will perform at The Capitol in Horsham later on this year. Also for the first time this year’s Spring Concerts will be held at The Capitol. This term the under 14 girls Basketball team have become Mid and North Sussex champions. They were victorious over Warden Park, Holy Trinity and St Paul’s in there quest to win this accolade and the U14 girl’s football team remain unbeaten.
The lively mix of students elected from each year group to form ‘Student Voice’ play an important role within the school putting forward opinions on a range of school issues from the structure of the school through to the curriculum and appointment of teaching staff. Kirsty MacKay, Drama Teacher and Student Voice Co-ordinator, said: ‘The ‘Student Voice’ initiative places Tanbridge House School at the forefront in this area and Sophie Bartlett, Year 10 student voice member said: “…from a student point of view, it is a very good feeling when you know you have made a difference.”
Mr Peter Marshallsay, Assistant Headteacher who runs the recently formed parent forum was delighted with the very positive results from last terms parent’s survey when 94% of parents stated their child likes attending Tanbridge House School.
Jill Friese-Greene, Head of Resources who leads on the direction in all non-teaching activities including finance and budget, said; “over the past 18 months things have really started to happen, giant strides have been made and we are on target to achieve the goal of making Tanbridge House School a centre of teaching and learning excellence.”