Kennet School


Kennet School is an academy secondary school in Thatcham, Berkshire, England. In 2011, Kennet was the highest achieving state school in West Berkshire using contextual value added results and third-highest using five good GCSEs. The school has an annual income of just over £8.9 million and spends roughly £5,000 per student per year.
The school opened on 11 September 1957 as a secondary modern, before converting into a comprehensive in 1971 and finally changing to an academy on 1 April 2011. The school has 1,755 pupils on roll in years 7 to 11, 300 pupils attending sixth form with 121 teachers and 78 non-teaching staff. The headmistress in Gemma Piper as of 2018.
Kennet is one of few schools in England to have three specialisms: in September 2000 the school was given Technology College status. In February 2002 a new technology block was built on the north of the site to replace dispersed classrooms. In March 2005 the school received Arts College status Most recently in April 2006 it was awarded the status of Language College.

Awards

Kennet was awarded the Artsmark Gold by the Arts Council England in 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, and 2013; and the Platinum award in 2018. It was also awarded the Sportsmark by Sport England in 2001. The school was also awarded the Challenge Award by National Association for Able Children in Education on 22 November 2006 and re-accredited on in November 2010 and November 2017 respectively, as recognition for its efforts to support Able, Gifted and Talented pupils. Kennet was only the 16th school in the country to receive the award at the time.

Teaching awards

The previous headmaster, Paul Dick was appointed an OBE for Services to Education in the 2000 New Year Honours. Paul Dick was also the Category Winner in 2001 in The Leadership Trust Award for School Leadership in a Secondary School in South of England.
Members of staff receiving teaching awards:
There is a sixth form at Kennet for students who wish to continue their education after the age of 16. The students have their own block that was constructed for the start of the 2007 academic year, which consists of a common area, where the sixth formers can socialise, a computer suite and the sixth form offices. There is also a section of the library provided for sixth form use only. There is no set uniform; instead a dress code is set. Boys must wear a shirt and tie, and girls must dress in smart office wear. The European Computer Driving Licence qualification can be studied with any sixth form course. Some sixth formers are appointed house captains after an application and selection process by the heads of houses. The captains organise teams for inter-house sports, music, debating, drama and art competitions.
PositionStaff
Head of Sixth FormK. Odenwalder
Head of Year 12A. Wood
Head of Year 13R. Tamale

Extracurricular activities

Houses

When students join the school they become a member of a house. The house system provides a structure for pastoral care and competition through sports, music, drama and day-to-day studies through the award of house points and commendations. Each house is overseen by a Head of House and their Deputy who co-ordinate the appointment of vice-prefects, prefects, house captains and strive to encourage their students to deliver their best.
There are four houses at the school: Saint Patrick, Saint Michael, Saint Francis, and Saint David. Now defunct houses are Saint George and Saint Andrew, which were dissolved in the mid to late 1980s. Each house is associated with a colour as shown in the table below.
HouseShield
St. David
St. Francis
St. Michael
St. Patrick

Exchange visits

Each year the school organises exchanges to France and Germany. The pupils can go to France in year 9 and Germany in year 9 & 10. The foreign pupil staying with their exchange partner's family for 7–12 days, then vice versa later on. In 2011, Kennet School celebrated 30 years' twinning with the German school Melibokusschule, in Alsbach-Hähnlein.

Facilities

"Kennet News"

The Kennet News school newspaper was first issued in May 1975 at the price of two new pence and ran until the late eighties. Its original slogan was News as it happens – and sometimes before it happens!. It reported the departure of George Hurford and the arrival of Terrence Enright in 1978 and later the arrival and departure of Dr. Nicholas Wheeler-Robinson.

Charity work

Each house chooses its own charity to support, and throughout the year each tutor group fundraises towards their house's target amount of money. For example, one of Saint Michael house's chosen charity was the Rwanda appeal. The senior staff sometimes plan one-off events, such as the Kennet Cup to raise money for charity. This was a football event that occurred on 19 June 2006 in aid of the Bobby Moore Cancer Appeal. The event was designed to coincide with the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

School Council

Every tutor group has 2 representatives to the School Council, one male and one female.

Ofsted

In 2005 the school was criticised in the Office for Standards in Education report for lacking 'a daily act of collective worship' and not reporting pupils' ICT progress in years 10 and 11, both of which are statutory requirements. All maintained English schools must provide daily worship that is broadly Christian, although parents can remove their children and sixth formers may decline to attend. Since the school is now an academy this requirement does not necessarily apply. The report also found that not all subject department heads have good enough monitoring systems to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
The 2008 reduced tariff report rated the school overall as "outstanding". The main recommendations of the report were to improve sixth form teaching including inconsistency in the quality of teaching between subjects and setting more accurately the right standard of work to stretch and develop pupils. The local Member of Parliament, Richard Benyon, has in the past spoken out over shortfalls for the budget towards Kennet School's sixth form which could explain its under performance in relation to the rest of the school.
The inspection in 2014, resulted in the school being rated as "Requires Improvement", although the sixth form was noted in the report as being "good".
The most recent inspection in May 2016, resulted in the school regaining its "outstanding" status, with the sixth form continuing to be rated as "good".

Controversies

In 2016 accusations were reported of child sex abuse by former teacher Robert Neill. The school was criticised for not following professional guidelines and missing opportunities to prevent the abuse, prompting an investigation by the West Berkshire Safeguarding Children Board. In 2016, a local vicar Pete Jarvis was accused of child sex offences. Jarvis was an active member of the school community and held youth counselling sessions with students. Since then, Kennet School has been reported by OFSTED to be 'highly vigilant' in keeping pupils safe.
In September 2017, Kennet School and the West Berkshire Council had a legal dispute over £43,000 owed to the council over the use of the conjoined leisure centre.

Risman Library

The Risman Library was opened on 23 September 1997 by Councillor Ann Risman, the Chairman of Berkshire County Council, who was accompanied by Chris Woodhead, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools in England. The library is designed to be a low energy environment by incorporating high levels of natural light and ventilation. It stocks over 22,000 books, has seating for pupils and has a separate Sixth Form study section, which doubles as a seminar room.

Notable alumni

Kennet's headmasters and headmistress, starting from establishment in 1957, are.

Statistics

YearStudents achieving five A*-C grades at GCSEAverage point score per student at A-level
201577.0%751.2
201474.0%807.4
201368.0%785.4
201276.0%829.0
201169.0%870.5
201077.0%926.3
200972.0%891.0
200868.0%868.8
200772.0%843.5
200671.0%813.8
200571.4%317.0
200470.0%284.6
200359.0%273.9
200266.0%257.5
200163.7%19.3
200061.4%21.1
199959.0%16.4
199861.0%16.3
199760.0%14.9
199659.0%15.2
199558.0%12.7
199454.0%10.9
199352.8%No data
199247.5%No data
199137.7%No data
199035.0%No data
198928.0%No data

Note:The irregularity in A-level scores is due to changes in the way the points are calculated.