Principal's Blog:

What´s the Big Idea??

Hampton Academy took an interesting step last week on our journey towards becoming a fully fledged Learning Schools Trust academy. Devised and organised by four of our middle leaders, Mr. Scruby, Ms. Wasley, Mr. Haigh and Mr. Molin, the entire school spent Tuesday afternoon in a mass workshop session — the Big Idea!

Students were encouraged to plan in advance what they wanted to work on and ensure that they had the resources needed to help them. A few struggled with the prior organisation this entailed, but the overwhelming majority made very effective use of this time and completed a gratifying amount of work under the supervision of their base group tutor.

Students chose the work they worked on based on their weekly goals

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The Big Idea in Action

The degree of organisation and focus evident in Year 7 was very impressive, with students working on a combination of science steps; history tasks for their ‘Who rules?´ course; English newspapers; art for their themed assignment portfolio; and many more tasks from the Learning Portal. I also witnessed two year 8 boys in the library analysing migration statistics from a statistical website, whilst their fellow tutees worked on literacy and numeracy tasks with their tutor — a good example of differentiation in action, directed by the students themselves.

Year 9 students hard at work on their chosen tasks.
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Workshops are of course only one aspect of the LST education model. Students experience regular ‘Communication´ sessions led by their teacher, impact sessions at the start of each theme or block of steps; occasional lectures; and ‘lab sessions´ and seminars. They work individually, in groups or in pairs according to the setting. Next term we intend to increase the opportunities students have to prepare and study independently in workshops, this time with specialist subject teachers on hand to support as necessary. Our large and effective Inclusion Team are of course fully deployed in these sessions to ensure students with additional needs are being supported, whilst each base group tutor has responsibility for ensuring students are making productive use of their time.
Students were able to choose tasks from the
LST Learning Portal
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The front part of our new building is now starting to look more and more like the architect's vision

Looking to the future


The Sixth Form Consultation closed on Friday with nearly 300 responses being received from parents, students, staff and other local providers. The process aroused considerable interest and the detailed analysis of the responses makes interesting reading. We fully recognise that a school sixth form will not suit everyone and we will continue to recommend the most appropriate progression route for each individual student. However the Year 10 boy who said to me last week ‘it would mean a lot to me to be able to stay here till I´m 18´ was expressing an aspiration shared by several others; and one to which we have in turn long aspired, but have been unable, to meet. Thank you to everyone who responded to the consultation.

A thoroughly eventful term!


As we move into our final week of term and the waning of 2011, it's a good moment to reflect on our journey since the summer. We have a two-storey college building nearing its ‘topping out´ stage and the foundations have been laid for our second lower college; in September these were just areas of tarmac and rubble. We have 62% of the Class of 2011 studying for A-levels or Advanced BTECs and over 90% studying, training or fully employed. We nearly won the Under 16s Football Final; we‘ve appointed a new Associate Principal; Ms. Drayson and Mrs. Glendenning have had their babies (congratulations to both!); Mr. Barry has taught a maths lesson to 180 students in the main hall; another ten staff have been to Sweden...I could go on! It's been a thoroughly eventful term.
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Last week our Year 8 and 9 drama club entertained us with their own special take on Oscar Wilde´s ‘Selfish Giant´ complete with set of masked ogres — I found them quite sinister! Next term we look forward to two performance highlights; the auditions and final of ‘Hampton Academy´s Got Talent´ and our annual Dance Show — buy your tickets early for both these sell-out events. We conclude this term with our traditional Christmas Celebration, which promises to be a musical treat — not least the annual outing of our Staff Choir.

Fond Farewells and Happy Hellos

Finally we say goodbye to three colleagues: Mr. Stanley in Humanities, Ms. Quinn in Art, and Lee Robinson our Dance Mentor. All three have made strong contributions to the teaching and learning of our students and will be missed; though I am reliably informed Lee intends to come back and help with the Dance Show. We welcome back Mr. Chiremba in Maths following a long period of ill health, and are pleased to report that Ms. Byrne continues with us for at least another term.

In January we welcome back Ms. Eggett from her maternity leave and will be joined by three new colleagues: Mr. Collman as Assistant Programme Leader for Geography, Ms. Maindonald as Assistant Programme Leader for Art; and Ms. Hughes as Associate Principal. We thank Ms. Graham and Ms. Leaver (who remain with us as full time teachers) for their hard work in the leadership and management of these curriculum areas in the meantime.

I wish you all a peaceful Christmas and New Year.

Sue Demont