Britain has skills shortages in maths, science and information technology. In particular, too few bright young women are choosing degree courses which lead to careers in these areas. We want to increase the number of girls who go into these areas, as well as providing all our students with confidence and skill in mathematics and information technology, whatever their later careers. We will be the first such school in Buckinghamshire.
What are we trying to achieve?
- Contribute to a pool of mathematically talented women in the workplace, with the skills to use ICT flexibly in a range of contexts.
- Develop our links with the local community, supporting projects in which adult learners can develop essential skills for employment.
- Build a centre of excellence to support the needs of our many learners and those in our partner primary and secondary schools, some of which are facing challenging circumstances. We will work with our partners to raise standards in these schools as well as our own.
- Develop innovative approaches to enthuse and engage students.
- Enable students to be confident problem solvers.
- Embed ICT in all subjects; ensuring students can make choices about when and how to use the technology.
Come to see the school: you will find maths students solving complex formulae with the help of software packages and interactive whiteboards; ICT students building intricate databases and programming; science students recording live experiments with data-logging software. All subjects, from English to Music, from French to Geography now benefit from these advanced technologies.
Specialist School Autumn Newsletter 2009