Welcome to the new Shelley College Website

Introduction by the headteacher, Mr Fowler

Welcome to our school website. A particularly warm welcome to all of you who have not visited it before.

Shelley College is a modern, purpose-built, 13-18, all-ability comprehensive school, which is extremely popular and successful. Our school enjoys a very good reputation amongst parents, employers and the local community. Students are very happy here. They learn well and achieve great success.

At the start of the new school year we are delighted to report that our school continues to go from strength to strength, and student numbers are buoyant. Our Year 9 intake has grown steadily from 335 in 2000 to 380 this September and we now have 1114 students in Years 9 to 11, compared with 1025 in 2000.

In addition, Sixth Form numbers have risen from 318 in 2000 to 345 this September. At a time when many schools are struggling to maintain their sixth forms, or even closing them, it is heartening to see our Sixth Form go from strength to strength. Indeed the Sixth Form could have been even larger, had we not turned away a significant number of additional applicants.

We are anxious to ensure that our sixth formers not only have the GCSE qualifications necessary to study in Years 12 and 13, but equally importantly, the correct attitude to work. That message is clearly getting through both to our students and to students in other schools. As a result, although we now expect even more of sixth formers than we did in the past, and it is harder to get into our Sixth Form, numbers of applications continue to rise each year.

As a result of the steady rise in numbers our school is now the largest it has ever been. There are now 1459 students on roll and we are holding discussions with LEA officers about the extra buildings necessary to accommodate this increase in numbers.

Headline News

At the end of last term we said goodbye to a number of staff who either retired or left us to take up new posts in other schools. We wish them all well.

This term we have been joined by Wendy Beaumont (Assistant Systems Manager), Joe Bell (Teacher of History), Rachel Cruise (PSHCE Co-ordinator), Cherie Dignan (Teacher of ICT), David Emsley (ICT Strategic Manager), Beverley Harley (Educational Teaching Assistant), Nadia Iqbal (Teacher of Law), Maggie Joyce (Educational Teaching Assistant), Shazia Kauser (Educational Teaching Assistant), Patricia McConaghy (i/c Psychology), James Nash (Head of Mathematics), Dan Pearson (Teacher of English/Media Studies), Suzanne Thompson (Second-in-Mathematics) and Rachel Ward (Teacher of History). In addition, Gillian Graham, Michelle Banks and Rebecca Rose are covering the maternity leaves of Sarah Robinson, Michelle Holgeth and Rachel Henderson.

One of the reasons so many students want to join our school, is the quality of our examination results. In 2005, we had the best all-round examination results in the school's history at Key Stages 3, 4 and in the Sixth Form. At GCSE, for example, our students gained the best results ever. 68% of them gained 5 or more GCSEs at A* to C grades up by 4% on 2004 and the highest ever by 4%. Our 5+ A* to C percentage has gone from 59% (2003) to 63% (2004) to 68% (2005).
Examination results are certainly not all that matters in a student's education, but increasingly we are ensuring that, along with their many other successes, students are performing to, and frequently beyond their potential in national tests and examinations.

As in previous summers we have worked hard to improve our buildings and the working environment for our students and staff. A significant number of new lockers have been bought for students' use and many classrooms now have new furniture and upgraded lighting. Eleven classrooms have also been painted and a further set of student toilets have been refurbished. We have created an excellent new Business Studies ICT room which can accommodate 30 students and which will be available for other departments when not being used by Business Studies and we also now have an additional Sixth Form ICT room. Our ICT provision has been further enhanced by the installation of a number of new interactive whiteboards in classrooms around the school. We are also delighted that the new Sports Hall roof is just about complete.

Last term many parents came to a series of presentations we held to explain our new Positive Behaviour Policy, which has been introduced this term. Our approach to all aspects of school life is now based very firmly on the regular and open rewarding of good behaviour and good work. Students can gain credits and certificates of achievement throughout the school year, as well as particular prizes and individual rewards at our major Presentation Evenings (at the Galpharm Stadium for lower school and Cedar Court Hotel for Sixth Form) and Rewards Assemblies.

In addition there will be regular times during the school year when we will send home "postcards of achievement" about students to their parents and when form tutors will telephone parents to pass on the good news about how well their children are doing.

We know that this positive reinforcement will affect every single student in Years 9 to 11 and we hope to discuss with the Sixth Form ways in which the Positive Behaviour Policy can be extended into sixth form life.

The Policy does include revised sanctions for the small number of students who do not adhere to our code of behaviour but we hope we will only need to use them with an increasingly small number of students.

It is early days yet, but students have already noticed a difference in their daily lives and are very positive about the changes.

Last school year, in anticipation of changes to national school meal guidelines from September 2005, we undertook a review of our school meals provision. As in all matters of welfare, we are keen to support change in order to encourage students to take a balanced approach to healthy eating.

We consulted the Student Council and worked with independent consultants. As a result, revised daily menus came into being this term. What we offer at every counter will help to reduce students' consumption levels of fat, sugar and salt, and will help students to appreciate the wide variety of traditional and fresh food available. We hope students will enjoy these innovations and take to them quickly. Students seem willing to accept the new menus and try the new things on offer, although, of course, a few are sad to see their daily chips and chocolate go! Schools that have already introduced the meals we are now serving say that the new menus have been warmly welcomed.

Every year we conduct a Parental Survey, using a private company. Questionnaires are sent out to all parents, in which we ask parents to tell us what they like about our school and where they feel we can improve what we offer them and their children. The survey replies are analysed by a private company, who are able to advise us about what we need to do to improve and also how our replies compare with those received in the hundreds of similar surveys the company conducts for schools up and down the country.

We were delighted that for the third year in a row we received a very high percentage of positive comments. It is clear that we are doing many things "right" as far as parents and students are concerned. In particular parents commented on how happy and confident their children had been since starting at our school. Parents also appreciated the quality of teaching in many subjects and the facilities provided for students. They were grateful for the opportunity to express opinions that the questionnaire gave them.

The survey shows that the most important aspects of school life for parents are the happiness of their children; the quality of teaching; the school's ability to develop students' potential; and school discipline.

We are keen to improve our school and to listen to parents' concerns. This year's survey highlighted some concerns that we are attempting to address. These include the quality of teaching in certain subjects; communication between school and home; inconsistency in the setting of homework; time wasted moving between teachers at Parents' Evenings; and the level of staff absence in certain subjects.

With better communication in mind, we are trying to gather the e-mail addresses of as many parents as we can. We want to e-mail more information directly to parents and remove the need to post or send home as much paper. We already have the e-mail addresses of many parents but if you could send yours to office.shelley@kirklees-schools.org.uk or telephone the School Office (01484 868777) with details, we would be most grateful.