About Wellacre Technology College

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At Wellacre we have excellent relationships with our local primary schools. A spirit of mutual trust, help and friendship has been fostered by teachers to enable the transition of your son from his primary school to Wellacre to be a smooth and continuous process.

We understand that all pupils experience varying amounts of anxiety at this time. Familiarisation, we believe, reduces anxiety of the unknown and smoothes the path of continuity. A full day programme of activities for all new intake pupils, integrated in groups, is organised in June so that they feel much less anxious when they start in September. They therefore enjoy a very positive start to their new school as your son will already know many teachers and be familiar with the buildings.

Wellacre Technology College was opened in January 1955 and in common with other schools it has altered considerably since its opening date. In 1966 a Hall block was erected giving among other things, an elevated Assembly Hall with a stage. A rebuilding programme was completed in September 1980 giving us all the modern facilities needed for a sound secondary education. Since 1995 a rolling programme of the building of new classrooms and refurbishing older one has continued.

Wellacre High School stands in extensive grounds which contain eleven hectares of playing fields including an all weather cricket pitch. A magnificent full sized artificial pitch with floodlighting was completed in Spring 2005. We possess two modern gymnasia each with a separate suite of showers and changing room. Our multi-gym has a wide range of modern equipment installed.

We have seven science laboratories, many dedicated computer suites, a food technology room, a design technology workshop, a drama studio, a language laboratory, a textiles room, a large library, a purpose built dark room and many other specialist rooms for subjects including Music and Art. Three new rooms were built for the humanities department in 2004 and they will be complemented by three further new rooms in the summer of 2005 to allow for the continued expansion of the school.

At Wellacre we treat all pupils as individuals. We spend a great deal of time discussing and talking with boys, developing growing intellects and maturing emotions. Your child will be guided by teachers in lessons and cared for by teachers within the framework of the Pastoral Team.

Your son will be placed in a tutor group with some of his primary school friends. The group will have a balance of abilities and interests and there will be eight parallel forms. It is in this group that your child will register each morning and afternoon with his form tutor. The tutor groups will provide the stable base throughout years seven to eleven. These tutor groups are not necessarily teaching groups, as the curriculum is delivered, where desirable, through classes set on ability. At the end of their third year at Wellacre, boys select subjects which they will study in their remaining two years at the school.

General Certificate of Secondary Education (G.C.S.E.) and equivalent

All Year 11 pupils are encouraged to complete courses which they choose at the end of Year 9 as options, along with the compulsory subjects of Mathematics, English and Science (Double Award). Year 9 pupils must choose one of seven Design and Technology subjects. All pupils also select a vocational subject – from Engineering, Constructions, Business, IT, Media, Sport and Travel and Tourism – all lead to qualifications equivalent to two or four GCSEs. Finally, two further choices must be made from Fine Art, Textiles, Photography, Drama, French, Geography, History, Music, Drama, PE and RE. A small number of boys receive additional Learning Support and spend one day a week on a college or work-based placement instead of the vocational option.

Homework is a vital part of the school curriculum. Its purpose is to generate a variety of worthwhile learning experiences, additional to those provided in school. We are also concerned to help pupils achieve their full potential and this implies the best possible examination results. Ultimate success in public examinations depends upon the early establishment of the habit of consistent private study to which regular homework contributes.

We ask parents to support us in seeing that homework is done conscientiously and in the best possible conditions. In order to ensure good channels of communication between home and school we give pupils a Homework Diary. Homework is recorded in the diary each day, and parents are asked to check and sign the diary each week before it is countersigned by a pupil’s Form Tutor.

Homework may be to complete or consolidate work done in class, to leave pupils to pursue their own lines of inquiry or to prepare work for the following lesson. The tasks asked of pupils may include factual or imaginative writing, reading, learning of revising, fact finding, illustration or map work, and thinking.

The minimum expected of pupils each night is to ensure that they are sufficiently prepared and up to date with their work in order that they can take part effectively in, and gain maximum benefit from, the next day’s lessons.

Understandably some parents feel that there is little they can do to help their children with homework and indeed with school work in general. In fact there are many ways in which parents can help their children: encouraging and supporting them, checking exercise books for presentation, handwriting and spelling, testing what has been set to be learnt, listening to them reading what they have written, asking them to explain what they have been studying, checking that they have the necessary books and equipment packed for the next day’s lessons.

These are all ways of helping children to appreciate the importance of homework and school work, look afresh at work done and thereby identify and correct for themselves mistakes or areas of misunderstanding.

Of course children work at different speeds and so homework will take longer for some children than others. If there is a repeated problem over homework parents are encouraged to contact the Year Head. Similarly, we will contact parents if we feel there are frequent problems regarding homework which parents could help resolve.