The school was successfully assessed against the latest version of the Investors in People Standards on February 23 & 24.
Our assessor spent two days in school and interviewed a broad cross –section of teaching and non-teaching staff as well as scrutinising key documents such as the School Improvement Plan and our recent Ofsted report.
 
The verbal feedback we were given at the end of his visit was very positive indeed.
 
Our assessor identified Willowfield as having a number of strengths including:
  • Highly motivated/positive group of staff, who are very committed to the school.
  • A very clear shared vision amongst teaching and non-teaching staff that puts pupils first.
  • A school improvement plan that provides a clear focus for development.
  • Clearly targeted staff training that is having a positive impact on teaching & learning.
  • High morale and a culture of openness & honesty that leads to highly motivated staff.
Coming so soon after our hugely successful Ofsted inspection, this is another fantastic endorsement of the school.
We now look forward to receiving the full written report, which will include development points to help us become even better.
 
John Hemingway
Headteacher
In 11.4, Willowfield has a Family Hero hiding!
 
Our very own Sulayman Daniaal was not only nominated for a Family Hero award from the Charity 4Children and Take a Break Magazine, but he got through to the finals and then won the London Family Hero Award!
 
Earlier this year 4Children and Take a Break scoured the UK to find heroes among us who have transformed the lives of children and families and who have really helped and given hope through times of adversity.
 
They received hundreds of nominations from all across the country. The nominations received were of a very high standard with many stories of wonderful people going above and beyond to make a lasting difference to a child or family. They narrowed the nominations down and chose just 2 finalist heroes for each of the 9 English regions, and for Wales, for Scotland, and Northern Ireland. We also had 3 finalists from the RAF Community for the special RAF Family Heroes Award.
 
They then invited the finalists to London for an interview and then to celebrate their hard work and dedication at our glamorous black tie Awards Evening at the Grand Connaught Rooms on 20th October. The award ceremony was hosted by Arlene Phillips, World renowned Choreographer and Television Judge and Neil Fox, Magic FM DJ, with a guest appearance by Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
 
Each regional hero was announced at the ceremony from the 2 regional finalist heroes and then the National Hero was chosen from the regional heroes.
 
The evening proved to be a night to remember for all of those involved, particularly so for the winning heroes who were invited up on stage to receive their awards and get their photo taken alongside the celebrity hosts.
Sulayman, has been caring for both his parents for the last 3 years. He cooks their dinner, and looks after the house to allow them to stay at home and lead as normal a life as possible. Despite the stress of home life, 15 year old Sulayman has maintained his grades at school and has remained positive throughout. When asked about how he felt to win the award,
 
Sulayman said: “Being nominated for the award was unbelievable, I didn’t think I would win for doing something that is very normal for someone like me. It was good to be acknowledged for doing the right thing, it gives other people a reason to be proud of you.”
 
Congratulations Sulayman!
 

 

 

GCSE Success 2011
Willowfield’s year 11 students received another excellent set of exam results when they collected them from school today.
A massive 79% of students achieved at least 5 GCSEs at grades A*-C with 52% claiming 5 A*-C including English and Maths. Every single student in the year group achieved at least 5 GCSE passes and there were some exceptional individual performances.
This included six students who achieved 10 or more A*-A grades. The most outstanding performance was by Gibril Wardere who came out with 14 A*-A grades, closely followed by Margarita Strimaite who achieved 13 A*-A. The other students recording 10 or more A*-A grades were Rebecca Saunders and Madeline Rutherfoord ( 11) and Moazzma Arshad & Jearl Boatswain (10)
Headteacher John Hemingway said, ‘I am extremely proud of the achievements of our year 11 students who have worked very hard to produce such fantastic results. They thoroughly deserve their success’.

Willowfield Students Get Active to Raise Money for Charity
 
On October 11th 2011, 8 students from Willowfield along with Ms Cockley took part in a ‘Silent Disco’ to help raise money for people in Burma. The event, organised by the Free to Dance Charity, took place in The Scoop by London’s Tower Bridge and despite the fact that the dance took place outside, everyone worked up a sweat!
 
A silent disco means that everyone listens to the music through headphones and dance non-stop. People passing by could not hear the music being played,  Ms Cockley said “it must have looked very strange!”
 
The group dressed in the charity’s colours of yellow and black. Ms Cockley went one step further and dressed as a yellow fairy. In fact she liked her costume so much she even travelled on the tube wearing it!
 
“We think we’ve raised about £150 for the charity but we are still collecting so feel free to add your donation” said Ms Cockley.
 
The idea was to support Ben Hammond in his record breaking dancing attempt.

Teacher Ben Hammond has been breaking dancing his way through records this year – all in aid of Learn Burma, the charity he has set up to support education projects in Burma. He became the first person to dance the London Marathon  in 8 hours 50 minutes, 34,692nd to cross the finishing line). In July he danced 72 hours non stop through Glastonbury and WOMAD – which is about half of the length of his next record breaking attempt, when he’ll be dancing non stop through Tue 11 – Sun 16 October, at The Scoop, More London SE1 2DB in a massive silent disco, supported by – he hopes - a cast of thousands. 
    International Schools Award
Willowfield Humanities College has been accredited with the International School Award. This fantastic award has been granted to the school because of the excellent work of a number of staff and students. This award recognises that Willowfield School has instilled “a global dimension into the learning experience of all children and young people”. Therefore Willowfield has worked alongside schools from Australia, Uganda and the USA as well as a number of other secondary and primary schools in the borough. Willowfield students have developed their understanding of what it means to be part of the school, local and international community through a number of activities and events. These have been as varied as British Citizenship ceremonies held within school to borough-wide events commemorating International Holocaust Memorial Day and involvement in a model UN. This event saw students working with other students from Mulberry School for Girls, in order to give them a greater understanding of how the UN worked.
 
Accreditation with the International School Award is confirmation of the great work staff and students carry out at Willowfield and another example of why the school is such a successful Humanities Specialist College. A College that puts such emphasis in promoting the spiritual, moral, mental and cultural development of pupils as well as achieving so well at GCSE.

Best wishes and congratulations should be given to all the staff and students who took part in helping us to achieve this award, it is a great achievement and deserves to be celebrated.

We will hold the award for three years and in that time should benefit both students and staff at Willowfield.
 
 
 
 CPD Quality Mark

The Pan London Professional Development Quality Mark Framework supports schools and other education institutions to promote high quality professional development with tangible outcomes for pupils and young people.
The Framework will support your organisation to have a benchmark by which you can assess the quality of your professional development provision against current innovative practice.  You can self evaluate and develop a personalised improvement action plan against the 4 strategic aspects of the framework:-

(i) Leadership of professional development
(ii) High quality professional development
(iii) Evaluating impact of professional development
(IV) Collaboration and partnerships (how this supports professional development)

This Quality Mark Framework has been developed by London CPD leaders from schools and Local Authorities working in partnership with the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) and London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the Institute of Education (IOE).
 

      

WILLOWFIELD HUMANITIES COLLEGE
celebrates national recognition as one of the most improved specialist schools and academies in the country
 
Willowfield Humanities College received national recognition for the improvement and progress made by its students at a prestigious awards ceremony held in London by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust on 23 March 2010.
 
This event celebrated the 633 specialist schools that had achieved the greatest improvement in their GCSE results in England & Wales.
 
At Willowfield this improvement was represented by a year on year increase in the number of students leaving school with five good GCSEs since 2006 totalling 22%.
 
“We are delighted to have recognition of the hard work of our students and staff.  As a small school, we are able to ensure all our students get the individual attention they need.”
 
Chris Montacute, Strategic Director of Performance at Partnership Networks at SSAT said:
 
 “Congratulations to these specialist schools and academies, which are improving GCSE results and transforming the lives of their students. It is through collaboration with each other, universities, businesses and with the wider local community that schools will deliver year on year improvements so that every young person, whatever their background or location, is given the opportunity to succeed.”
  
The guest speaker at the awards ceremony held at Kings Place, London was Richard Reeves, Director of the independent think tank Demos.
 
 
 
   Artsmark
 
An Artsmark is awarded to schools which show a commitment to the full range of arts - music, dance, drama and art & design. It is a national award scheme and is managed by Arts Council England. 
 
As anticipated, our application for reaccreditation at Artsmark Silver Level was successful. By gaining an Artsmark, our school shows its commitment to the wider development of young people and teachers and to raising the profile of the arts in the school and local community. We have also recently been recognised for the quality of the many wide-ranging arts activities which take place outside normal lesson time and have been given the ‘Quality in Study Support’ award. 
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