The Crestwood School
Encyclopedia
The Crestwood School is a school in Kingswinford
Kingswinford
Kingswinford is a suburban area in the West Midlands.Historically within Staffordshire, the area is mentioned in the Domesday Book its name relates to a ford for the King's swine - Latin Swinford Regis. The current significance is probably in tourism, education and housing...

, West Midlands
West Midlands (county)
The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Admissions

It is an 11-16 comprehensive school with some 700 students on the roll, averaging at around 140 per year group.

Grammar school

The school was started during the 1930s as Brierley Hill Intermediate School in Mill St., Brierley Hill town. It became Brierley Hill Technical School before becoming a Grammar School in the 1950s with pupils from the Urban District and other parts of South Staffs Education Authority area and Brierley Hill Parliamentary district. The Grammar School relocated to new purpose-built premises in Bromley Lane, the current building, in 1959.

Comprehensive

It went comprehensive and was renamed The Crestwood School in 1975 and has since expanded to serve the eastern area of Kingswinford which was mainly developed after the Second World War. It stands on the border of Kingswinford and Brierley Hill
Brierley Hill
Brierley Hill is a town and electoral ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England. It is one of the larger Black Country towns with a population of 9,631 and is heavily industrialised, best known for glass and steel manufacturing, although the industry has declined...

 townships.

The school had a sixth form until July 1991.

Easier access for students

In August 2006, the school completed work to insert a lift and adjoining corridors between the two main education "blocks" - A block and B block. A consequence of this is that students are now able to cross between the two blocks without having to go in a "up-and-down" fashion.

Proposal to merge into an academy

In December 2007, plans were unveiled to merge Crestwood with nearby Pensnett High School
Pensnett High School
The Pensnett 14-19 Education Campus is a secondary school located in the Pensnett area of Brierley Hill in the West Midlands of England. There are around 150 pupils aged 14–16 on the roll.-History:...

 to form an academy
Academy
An academy is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership.The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece. In the western world academia is the...

, but these plans were scrapped 15 months later.

Recent years

In May the Head Teacher Mrs Maxine Suthons banned energy drinks including Red Bull
Red Bull
Red Bull is an energy drink sold by the Austrian Red Bull GmbH, created in 1987 by the Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz. In terms of market share, Red Bull is the most popular energy drink in the world, with 3 billion cans sold each year. Dietrich Mateschitz was inspired by an already...

 from the school amid concerns that they fuelled disruptive behaviour by pupils. This event proved to be controversial through the eyes of the media. Now there are vending machines that sell energy drinks.

Over the school holidays, The Crestwood school had implanted CCTV Cameras in and around the school to improve security and, after two years, the refurbishment of the school's Science laboratories was completed.

Summary and Campus 21

Crestwood is one of the more successful secondary schools in the area and is part of a project that involves a Primary School and a school with Special Educational Needs. These schools work with each other. The area known as Campus 21 has benefited from investment including the building of The Brier School (SEN 5-19) and a new sports hall. The Drama department is one of the most successful subjects in the school, each year they perform for the National Youth Theatre, the recent performance was Ruckus In The Garden. There is a current drama project going under-way for the Shakespeare's school festival 2010 which the Drama group will perform 'Romeo And Juliet'

Two systems used within Crestwood include the Buddy system, whereby year 10 pupils work with new year 7 in a bid to help them settle in after such a major change. There is also a group of ambassadors where year 11 pupils assist teachers in the day to day monitoring of pupils.

Extra-curricular

Extra qualifications and courses include Critical Thinking AS level, for more gifted students, hosted by King Edward VI College, and vocational opportunities at local colleges.

Other activities include debates, swimming galas and historic visits.

For option choices pupils have the choice to take: P.E, Food technology, Product design, Geography, History, R.E, I.C.T, Drama, Art or Music as their main GCSE Course, or they have the choice to go to a local college and study different courses including: Animal management, Hair And Beauty, Construction, Business Studies, Child Care and man other courses.

Special Educational Needs

Crestwood has a very active SEN policy, with a higher than average proportion of SEN pupils than most other schools, this has been bolstered recently by the introduction of a scheme whereby Crestwood becomes the major centre for deaf or hard of hearing pupils throughout the Dudley Metropolitan Borough.

The House System

The House System is now fully implemented having been introduced to pupils in a series of assemblies in July 2009. Each house consists of at least one class from each year group. After pupils and staff had voted which list of names they liked best as a title for each house the system with the greatest number of votes was Famous Ship Names.

There is a member of staff who has pastoral responsibilities for each House. This management structure replaced the Head of Year system where a member of staff dealt with issues that arose from pupils who belonged to a particular year group.

This new method of grouping pupils in this vertically integrated way will have a number of benefits for students and it is envisaged that it will result in the smoother running of Crestwood.

Each house is now identified by a different colour. This colour is integrated in to the school badge that is worn on a blazer. The school is very grateful to Totally Uniformed who have helped us to finance this change. The result is that current pupils have been given a new house badge to replace the old one that they had.

The first time the house system was incorporated in to the life of Crestwood was for Sports Day on Tuesday 14 July 2009

The school badge had been changed due to The House system being introduced, with the rim of the badge being the colour of the house they are in. The colours and names for each house are:
  • Invincible - Orange
  • Discovery - Blue
  • Endeavour - Green
  • Victory - Red
  • Warrior - Yellow

Brierley Hill Grammar School

  • Kevin Roberts - Director General of the Meat and Livestock Commission
    Meat and Livestock Commission
    The Meat and Livestock Commission, , was set up by the UK Government under the Agriculture Act 1967 with Government money with the remit to promote the sale of red meat...


External links

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