Redbridge Community School is a thriving, ambitious and forward thinking school based on our four key values of Aspiration, Respect, Opportunity and Excellence.
The school is housed in a state of the art modern build with excellent ICT facilities and some of the best sporting facilities in the area. Visitors regularly comment on the “vibe” and the “positive ethos” of our school. Our culture is highly infectious and is also evidence of our continuous drive to be the best we can be. Our students and community deserve the very best – always.
Our people, both the staff and the students, matter and count. The school uses its funding to invest heavily in its staff through exciting in house CPD development activities, Westfield Health Insurance and a wellbeing programme where over half of after school meetings are dedicated to well-being activities such as sport, yoga, pottery and cooking! In fact, anything that is suggested is usually welcomed. You have to see the staff annual pudding race for it to be believed…
The school, with its commitment to our people, has also recently been awarded Investors in People Platinum. This places us in the top 1% of all businesses and schools who are focussing on well-being, workload and mental health.
With respect to the students, the school is determined to buy the very best equipment and provide activities for students as part of its ‘enrichment programme’, this is to ensure that poverty does not lead to any sort of disadvantage. There are far too many activities here to mention so please peruse the pages to see for yourself, or go one better and come and see for yourself by booking a tour of the school.
In addition to this, the school boasts positive collaborative networks that help to promote student achievement and our continuous professional development of staff.
These networks include other providers such as:
- Bitterne Park School
- Wildern School
- Department for Education
- The Reach Cooperative Trust
The school has also developed excellent links with the University of Southampton, where we are officially working together to raise aspirations further. Various trips and visits to the university are regularly on offer to our students.
The school has recently applied for and been awarded the NACE Challenge Award to recognise our Gifted and Talented students and our provision for them, resulting in a new curriculum design to re-establish traditional academic subjects through a pathway approach during our two year Key Stage 4.
This innovative approach includes the following pathways:
- Drake or Windsor Pathway (Academic)
- Hawking Pathway (Academic)
- Shakespeare Pathway (Academic)
- Branson Pathway (Academic/ Vocational)
- Horticulture Pathway (Vocational)
- Hearing Impaired Pathway (specific need driven)
- Endeavour (Nurture)
- Pathway (Vocational)
- Edu-K8 Pathway (Vocational)
We run nurture groups for Years 7, 8 and 9, and we have introduced an Endeavour Pathway to offer a bespoke and flexible curriculum for a group of students who sit between our curriculum pathway approach and Edu-K8, our own ‘in house’ alternative provision, which aims to meet the needs of our most challenging students. These students do not always enter the main school, but the centre provides a personalised and bespoke curriculum designed to meet individual needs and is seen as a “beacon of excellence” across Hampshire.
We have our own ‘Lucy’s Garden’ Horticulture Centre on site and this includes a market garden, egg laying chickens and a bike maintenance centre (‘Geared Up’). In addition to this, we have invested heavily in ICT, including state of the art Wi-Fi and a large number of Chrome books, to support literacy within the school.
Ethos is essential to our educational philosophy and students are rewarded with cinema afternoons, falconry displays, ‘Party in the Park’ and our very own ‘Winter Wonderland’. A sense of fun and humour is vital! Our philosophy is simple – “more fun means better learning”.
Mr J S Ashley
HEADTEACHER
