The start of the new academic year is always one of excitement for Witchford Village College – and this year is no different.
Despite the unusual circumstances that 2020 has brought to education, the College has been working hard behind the scenes to ensure that its students are met with the best possible experience as they reintegrate into school life.
The aim is simple: to enable all students to realise their potential. The College believes that a well-rounded education is crucial for young people. Driven by their ethos and values, the school’s curriculum enables students to study the subjects important to them, develop the skills they will need, and shapes them as citizens ready for a fulfilling future. In order to do this, and to meet internal goals, the College wants to ensure that its facilities are to the highest possible standard and are providing a welcoming, inspiring environment for all.
With this in mind, last year, Witchford Village College put in a successful bid of over £200,000, which has allowed it the resource to refurbish three science labs and one preparation room, as well as building a large storage room. This work comes in addition to the refurbishment of Lab 5, a project that was carried out by a resident site team over the summer holidays. Having not been refurbished and modernised since the College was built, these works have significantly improved the science facilities and created a vibrant and dynamic learning space for all students to use.
Bessie Owen, head of school, said: “As our community comes back together in full for the first time in months, we are committed to ensuring our staff and students are able to operate in both a safe and monitored manner. The refurbishments made over summer reflect our new way of teaching and operating and I’m extremely proud of how our site team pulled together to make this possible. Part of this has included brand-new benches with laminate surface, which will ensure easy cleaning between lessons and a new layout of the lab, allowing for greater flexibility to complete group work and giving students the chance to section off into their own bubbles.”
As well as this project being developed with new safety guidelines in place, everything has been refurbished to ensure the highest quality learning experience for students. This has included: new natural daylight LED lighting, which has been built into the ceilings to ensure better lighting conditions for students to focus, new blinds which will allow effective blackout for practical work on topics such as the properties of light, measuring the rate of photosynthesis or flame tests, and new state of the art 86-inch interactive screens to allow all students to proactively follow the lesson and also interact with the boards themselves.
These new refurbishments come at an exciting time for Witchford Village College, as its community continues to grow and evolve from the connection to The Learning Alliance – a purposeful family of schools, each with its own distinct identity. Each school within the Trust offers academic rigour, excellent extra-curricular opportunities and values the arts and performing arts. The Learning Alliance and its schools are proudly international and internationally minded, serving a diverse community with a broad, specialist and inclusive provision.
Learn more about Witchford Village College and its learning environment at witchfordvc.co.uk
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