User:95jb14/SGCT

St. Georges College of Technology is an English secondary school in North Kesteven, Lincolnshire, England. It was founded in 1908 and has now moved sites to the 32 acre land it is currently on. In 1994 the School gained specialist schools status as a Technology College. The school's facilities include a recently opened childcare centre.

Information

 * Principal: Mr P. F. Watson BA (Hons) MA NPQH
 * Vice Principals: Mrs J Crow, Mrs H Anderson, Mr M Bamford, Mr T Crawshaw, Mrs J Steward, Mrs K Squire, Mr S Stinchcombe.
 * Location: Lincolnshire (County of England)

The School has over one thousand, eight hundred pupils attending in the secondary school (Years, 7 to 11), and nearly four hundred students in the St George's part of the Joint Sixth Form, spanning two years (Lower and Upper Sixth). The school day for students begins at 8:40 and ends at 3:25. It is on the site of Westholme house, a 19th century Gothic building, which is said to be haunted. It now acts as the sixth form base.

History
The school opened on 4 May 1908 and was known as Sleaford New Council Schools and was built on Church Lane. Male and female lessons were conducted separately. Soon after it became Sleaford County Secondary School. In 1957, the school opened a series of new buildings at Westholme Park as Sleaford Secondary Modern School. Being in rural Lincolnshire, there were many lessons on agriculture with livestock being kept on the site. In 1984, the Church Lane site was demolished and turned into housing. The school changed its name to become the St George's Technology School and it features the dragon on its badge. The agricultural lessons were dropped and the school became one of only twelve Technology Colleges (a specialist school) in England in February 1994. Being a technology college also meant more money from the government. The Stable Blocks originally used for keeping horses still exist, and the school has a relatively large playing field on-site with eight tennis courts. The Brealey Languages Centre opened in 1985, the library and resource centre opened in 1999, the sports hall was opened in January 2001 by the Bishop of Grantham and a new science block and construction academy opened in 2005. * In the 2007/2008 academic year, the school made national news when there was a minor leak of Sulphur Dioxide in the science block, leaving several students needing medical attention after collapsing.

In 2007 a new house was created, with the temporary name 'house' at first until a vote between 'Mason' (the first teacher on roll) and 'Lovell' (the first student on roll) declared Lovell the new name of the so called '5th house'. Its colour is purple.

The school is situated just south of Tesco.

The Brealey Centre
Opened in 1985, the Brealey Language Centre was hailed as one of the most advanced in the United Kingdom and was constructed using the funds that the school governors had authorised. There intention was to create a languages centre that was to be unique to the UK. The centre had a satellite dish fitted that could pick up signals from Russia. What really made the Braley Centre special was it's large Lab, located in the heart of the block.

Once opened the Lab housed 30 BBC computers (complete with audio stations) and a special hub for teachers to monitor the class. In those days, the favoured software was 'Fun With Texts' (which is still used now to some extent). All of the PCs in the lab were networked but unfortunately the lab was not networked to the rest of the school, with few means of computerised communication.

During the early 1990s A-level Computing for the whole of Sleaford Sixth Form was hosted at the Brealey Centre, the programming language  of choice being Turbo Pascal 6.0.

In 1994 St. George's received it's Specialist Status and it was decided to connect the languages centre to the main school and adopt a complete network. This revolutionised ICT and computers in the college. Even today the centre still houses the main server to the school. Software and teaching methods changed as technology advanced and Microsoft Windows was installed in the 1990s.

Now the main Lab has been divided in two and the hub removed, with flat screen monitors and Windows 2003 installed it is considerably modern but St. George's are still trying to find more ways to improve.

Ref: Case Report on the Brealey Language Centre.

Academy
St. George's started planning to form an academy in 2008. It will merge with the Avelands School, located in Billingborough and Cotelands School, located in Ruskington. It has been confirmed recently that the college will become an academy as from January 1st 2010.

College Council and various other roles
The school has a college council system, which allows students to pass on their ideas to the college, is made up of students in the following hierarchy system: Every form (10 per year) elects 2 Form Representatives who meet with the other reps in their year on a specified day every other week. The year group elect two college councillors at the beginning of the year and one chairman for the year group. They sit in at the 'year group meetings' with the Form Reps. The College Councillors then have a meeting to discuss the matters raised in these meetings with the other three councillors from each year group on every other Tuesday. There is Chairman of the entire council as well.

There are also other roles in the school:


 * Form Captains: a ceremonial role. Two from each form are elected and they collect or hand out awards on behalf of their form.
 * Environmental Councillors: a new role, similar to college councillors.
 * Anti-bullying committee: set up in January 2008 by the college council at lunch times, run by sixth formers.
 * Subject councillors: sometimes a specific subject might ask for three councillors per year group to discuss what improvements might be made to the teaching of those subjects etc.
 * Games Captain: a house will nominate a number of Games Captains who will help arrange sporting fixtures between houses.
 * Girls in Sport: a committee to try and organise more sporting clubs for girls.

Admissions
St. George's is a secondary modern school in Lincolnshire, England, which was first opened in 1908. It is located on Westholme off Westgate in the town of Sleaford. St. Georges contrasts with the other secondary (grammar) schools in the town, being the only one accepting both male and female students from the age of 11 until 18. It is one of the largest schools in Lincolnshire, with about 1600 pupils.

At A level, some pupils may be allowed to transfer to either grammar school, but many A levels are taught in a joint fashion via the Sleaford Joint Sixth Form. The school also has links with the William Alvey CE primary school.

Academic performance
The school's GCSE results are:
 * 54% of pupils gaining five grades A-C including English and Maths in 2007.
 * It gets the second best GCSE results in North Kesteven, after Branston Community College.
 * It has a sixth form, which is part of a unique Joint Sixth Form (shared with Kesteven and Sleaford High School and Carres Grammar school - the two other main Sleaford Schools).

Awards and statuses
The College has gained numerous awards during its history. The following are some of the current awards:


 * Specialist Schools Trust: Technology Status (Technology Colleges specialise in teaching mathematics, science, design technology, and information and communication technology (ICT)).
 * Specialist School Trust: Applied Learning.
 * Outstanding Ofsted Report.
 * LEPP (Leading Edge Partnership Programme).
 * Artsmark Award from the Arts Council of England.
 * Fairtrade: In May 2008 the College gained Fairtrade School status and sells and encourages the sale of Fairtrade products. The food on sale is supplied by Traidcraft. The College is now supporting the initiative for Sleaford to become a Fairtrade Town.
 * Part of Healthy Schools Programme.

The school has many other awards too, but these are the recent and major awards.

Notable teachers and Alumni

 * Mr. Mark Wallington (b 1952), teacher, former Professional Footballer. Teaches PE.