Swavesey Village College

Swavesey is seeking to become the first school in Cambridgeshire to achieve this status and is preparing its bid to submit to the Department for Education and Skills in March 2002.

What is specialist status?

Specialist schools have existed nationally since 1994. There are several in Cambridgeshire, specialising in : the Arts and Media; Languages; Sport; and Technology. The DfES is now introducing four new categories of specialisation: Business and Enterprise; Engineering; Mathematics and Computing; and Science.

Specialist status is about improving the quality of teaching and learning, thereby raising standards.

It develops a momentum for change through the specialist area and by adopting an increasingly technological approach to the whole school curriculum.

It involves a school in developing a distinctive ethos; working with partners within its own community and with other schools and colleges to raise standards within the specialist subject area.

It is about setting, and meeting, targets for improvement year on year and being publicly accountable for doing so.

What does Swavesey have to do to further its bid?

It has to: raise 50,000 through sponsorship (pledges are needed by 13 March 2002); draw up a four-year development for Science within the College and its Community; and show how the money will be spent to achieve its declared objectives.

What would Swavesey receive as a Specialist Science School?

It would receive: a further 100k capital grant to add to the 50k of sponsorship raised, and 123 p.a. per pupil recurrent grant - initially for four years and dependent upon targets being met: leverage of over 11:1.

This, potentially, represents an overall annual increase of budget in the order of 4% and would make a significant difference to the quality and range of provision in Science education at the College and within its community.

Why Science?

Under the leadership and management of its head of department - Stephen Howard, Science has, over a period of three years, undergone root and branch change which leaves it on the threshold of significant improvements in both the quality and diversity of the provision we are making at the College.

Levels of achievement at both key stage 3 (13+) and KS4 (15+) have risen significantly. For example, in 2001 86% of pupils at KS3 reached the government's target and 76% of pupils achieved a higher grade in Science in the GCSE examination.

The department is increasingly involved with primary school partners at Key Stage 2. In 2001, all intake pupils arrived at SVC with the outcomes of a co-ordinated Science project in their Science exercise books; a project which is continuing into Year 7.

At KS3 a member of the Science department has always run our Young Engineers club. The department hosts and runs the only state school sponsored Science Challenge in the region for pupils in Years 7 - 9.

In both 2000 and 2001, SVC pupils represented the Eastern Region in the finals of the PRI 'Express Yourself' conference, held annually at the Royal Institution. Last year our Y10 girls team won the U.K. final, against very strong opposition, to become Top Young Science Presenters of 2001. This year they will deliver the 'Junior Royal Institution lecture'.

If successful in its bid for specialist status, the school would look to build on these successes, working with primary school partners in a variety of ways, for example, establishing mini-labs in their schools serviced by a mobile laboratory technician - complementing the work which will be done by our peripatetic IT technician. With a partner post-16 provider we would look to share expertise, reciprocal teaching arrangements and mutually supportive provision for our students.

The Science department is ready for this challenge and confident of delivering on the demanding targets it would be set resulting from a successful application.

Why Swavesey?

There are many reasons, apart from its excellence in Science, why Swavesey should make this commitment to the future:
through a carefully managed development programme, it has, over the last decade grown from 750 to 1000 pupils, with facilities in place for a total enrolment of 1200 in 2004
it is acknowledged as a high achieving school locally and nationally
it has, largely on a self-help basis, successfully addressed the challenges of both curriculum and administration ICT provision and is well on the way to meeting DfES targets for pupil provision

Specialist Science status is the platform on which its future can be built.

The College's current strategic plan is entitled:
Taking up the Challenge
We intend, with the support of our parents and local community interests, to take on this particular challenge: to create a centre of excellence for science education within a comprehensive school context to the considerable benefit of current and future generations of young people within our community.


P J Talbott
Warden