Brooke Weston Academy

Background

Founded in 1991, the school was opened as a City Technology College. The college's catchment area includes Corby, Kettering and surrounding towns and villages. Two businessmen, Hugh de Capell Brooke, a local landowner, and Garry Weston, owner of Associated British Foods donated land and funded the initial building of the school respectively, along with additional grants from the Weston Foundation. The school opened in September 1991 under the name Brooke City Technology College. The name was changed 18 months later to reflect the continued support offered from the Weston Foundation.

School day

Lessons begin within school at 8:35am, and all students are required to sign into the school using their cards by 8:30am. There are five lessons within a school day all lasting 1 hour 15 minutes long, which allows for extra curricular learning. Students receive a fifteen-minute breakfast break during lesson one, and a thirty-minute lunch break in lesson three. They do not have playtime during these breaks, but do have an option to sit in the courtyard located in the centre of the school during the summer time. The school day ends at 4:05pm with school buses departing at 4:15pm from the front of the college. After-school activities and clubs are also available for students wishing to stay on past 4:05pm. Students who choose to stay on can only stay in the school until 6pm. There are eight tutor groups in each year group and these are as follows: B, R, K, W, E, S, T, and N.

The peculiarity of the five minutes past start and end time of the day was introduced in 1996 to reflect a more appropriate time for the fleet of local coaches that transport many students home. This followed an extended period of students waiting outside the school for coaches that were late arriving for evening collection. The simple five-minute addition appeared to improve this situation and has remained since.

Principals

Information technology

The school makes use of electronic whiteboards in all classrooms, learning bases and study rooms. Every student and member of staff have their own user accounts and storage areas. The school also houses a local area network, allowing students to access their work from any computer within a safe environment, and abiding to a usage policy. Strict filtering remains in place to stream-line the learning experience for the good of the pupils.

The school was one of the first to take on board the GNVQ IT, in place of the GCSE. The transitional year of 1998 saw other subject classes cancelled for entire week blocks to bring the students into the new qualification having previously studied the GCSE. In addition many Design & Technology classes were cancelled to be replaced with IT classes.

Online curriculum

The school produces and sells an ‘online curriculum’. This consists of a wide range of interactive learning materials and online tasks which all relate to various subject areas. The school's subsidiary company, @tain, then sells access to the content to other schools. In addition, the school also provides training days which allow teaching staff from other schools to attend seminars at the school and learn the methods in which the school teaches the courses provideed on its online curriculum and how to maximise the effectiveness of using it in a classroom environment.

School traditions

Each year, the school holds its annual sports day at Corby Triangle near Rockingham where it displays almost all popular track and field disciplines. Sports Day also includes the final of the inter-tutor Tug of War competition. Sports Day is highly popular for students, and each tutor group in a year competes against each other to gain the most points and win the trophy. Tutor groups also participate in inter-tutor football and rounders/netball each year.

Brooke Weston holds an annual prizegiving in September of each year, celebrating the achievements of the students for the previous academic year. Prizes are awarded in each year for all subjects, student of the year, and also recognition for academic success in GCSE and A Level.

Other facilities

The school also has a Design Technology suite, with CAD/CAM facilities and a laser cutter. The CAD/CAM suite also includes an A3 colour laser printer. The department also includes two workshops containing CNC lathes, wood-turning lathes, metal working lathes, scroll saws and pillar drills, jig-saws and clamps as well as plenty of other equipment. The department also features excellent facilities for textiles and sewing as well as an area for students to review and edit design plans digitally using a range of programs. It was recently refurbished at a cost of £250,000. The school also has its own video editing studio with chroma-key (blue-screen) facility.

2007

86% of Brooke Weston pupils achieved the equivalent of 5 or more A*-C GCSEs including English and maths.

2008

Brooke Weston achieved a 100% A level pass rate. 86% of Brooke Weston pupils achieved the equivalent of 5 or more A*-C GCSEs including English and maths (100% A*-C GCSEs).

2009

81% of Brooke Weston pupils achieved the equivalent of 5 or more A*-C GCSEs including English and Maths. It also achieved an 100% A*-C pass rate. Nearly a quarter of all 183 students achieved 10 or more A* or A grades, and exactly a third of all grades awarded were an A or A*. Three students achieved 17 A* and A grades (including GNVQ ICT), and 2 students achieved the equivalent of 19 GCSEs.
In A Level, Brooke Weston achieved an 100% pass rate, including 48% of those being an A or B grade. In five subjects, all entries received A grade achievements.No sixth formers gained a place on an Oxbridge course

2010

Students at Brooke Weston achieved an 86% pass rate of A*-C grades in GCSE including Maths and English. 38% of all grades awarded were A* or A, and seven students achieved 17 GCSEs each. Top performing students achieved 15 A* or A grades.
Brooke Weston also achieved its, at the time, best ever A Level results this year, with a 100% pass rate. 61% of grades awarded were A*/A+B, and the average UCAS point score for each student also increased dramatically.One student gained a place to study Experimental Psychology at Oxford University.

2011

84% of pupils achieved 5 or more A*-C GCSEs including English and Maths, with 37% of all GCSE grades awarded either an A* or A grade.
On average pupils attained 15 GCSEs.
100% of students passed all the A Levels they sat. 68% of all A Level exams were graded at A*/A or B (up 7% from the year before), with 6% of all exam entries being awarded an A* grade. The average UCAS point score increased to 379 (equivalent to 3 A grades per student), up from 334 from the previous year. Two students successfully received grades to study at Cambridge University (King's College and Pembroke College), one at Oxford University (Christ Church) to study Biochemistry, two for Medicine and one for Dentistry.

2012

87% of pupils achieved 5 or more A*-C GCSE passes including English and Maths, a 3% increase on the year before. The 100% GCSE pass rate was extended to a ninth year. 41% of all entries were graded at A* or A.
64% of A Level exams were graded at A*/A or B, a decrease of 4% from the previous year. The average points score also decreased marginally to 361, which remains as the equivalent of three A grades. However, there was a 4% increase in the number of A* grades awarded, up to 10% in 2012. One student gained admittance to Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

2013

72% of pupils achieved 5 or more A*-C grade GCSE passes including English and Maths, a significant drop from previous years. On average, each pupil achieved 14 GCSEs graded A*-C, and 47 pupils achieved at least 8 A* or A grades. 40% of entries were awarded A* or A.
The school's, at the time, best ever A-Level results were celebrated in 2013. A number of students gained entry to well-established universities including; King's College, London (Dentistry), University College London (Biochemistry), University of Manchester, University of Nottingham, and the University of Leicester. One student went to study Medicine at the University of Debrecen in Hungary.

2014

84% of pupils achieved 5 or more A*-C GCSE passes, up 8% from the year before. Excluding ICT, 21% of all entries were graded at A* or A. Of the year 11 cohort, 73% gained a GCSE in Modern Foreign Languages, a significant improvement compared to previous years. 92% of entries for Mathematics were graded A*-C, replicating the school's record.
2014 was a year of change in GCSE examinations; had previous accountability measures been used, 100% of students would have secured 5 A*-C grades, and 39% of all entries awarded A* or A.
61% of all A-Level entries were awarded A*, A or B, and 86% of all entries graded A*-C. The overall average point score was 336 UCAS points, equating to a grade profile of AAB.
17 pupils achieved a profile of 3 A*/A grades, and 3 pupils a profile of 4 A*/A grades. 39% of all entries were awarded A* or A. 70% of all pupils continued to Universities across Britain, including Imperial College London, Warwick University and St. Andrew's University.

2015

90% of students achieved 5 A*-C grades at GCSE, with 84% of the cohort securing English, Maths and at least three other GCSEs. 28% of all grades awarded were either A* or A.
The Academy celebrated its best ever A-Level Results, with an unprecedented six students having secured a place at Oxbridge. It was also the sixth consecutive year that students have performed at an outstanding level, with an average score per student of 381 UCAS points, indicating that, on average, students achieved three A grades each.

2016

83% of year 11 students secured A* to C grades, or equivalent, in five or more subjects at GCSE. 77% of the cohort secured English, mathematics and at least three other GCSEs or Level 2 qualifications. Almost a quarter of all grades awarded were A*/A or Distinction.
55% of all A-Level entries were graded at A*/A/B and 83% of grades were A*- C. The overall average point score per student was 325, indicating an ABB profile. No students secured an Oxbridge place, however over 80% of the Year 13 cohort moved onto university with several achieving places at highly prestigious universities such as University of Durham and University of Bath.

Recent development

In September 2008, Brooke Weston converted to an Academy. £5 million of Government money has been invested in the school, which has resulted in the construction of a new Creative and Digital Arts Centre. Opened by Trustee Hugh de Capell Brooke on 9 October 2009, this has expanded the school's music and drama performing facilities alongside a new TV studio and kitchens, which will allow Food Technology to be taught. The entire school building underwent a significant refurbishment to coincide with the opening of the new department.

Controversy

In January 2013, Brooke Weston issued an apology after an email criticising a pyjama day was accidentally sent from vice principal, Mark Willimott, to children's cancer charity 'Chelsea's Angels', who suggested the event. Willimott had intended to forward the email with his comments to a colleague, but inadvertently addressed it to charity founder Michelle Tompkins too, writing:

"AM I MISSING SOMETHING??? FYI although are they aiming for a paedophile's paradise????"

Principal Trish Stringer apologised, describing the incident as regrettable and clarifying that Brooke Weston does not support pyjama days as they do not believe it is appropriate for children to come to school in night attire. In August 2015, Willimott was arrested for possessing and distributing indecent images of children. He pleaded guilty to all four charges facing him, including one count of making 30,546 indecent images of children, one count of making 773 indecent images of children, one count of distributing 128 indecent images, and one count of possession of an extreme pornographic image showing the act of intercourse with an animal. None of the images were of children at Brooke Weston. In April 2016, Willimott was sentenced to two years in prison for the charge of distributing images, eight months in prison for each of the charges of making images, and one month in prison for a further charge of possessing an extremely indecent image involving an animal. A statement from Brooke Weston said:

"Brooke Weston Academy is shocked and appalled by Mark Willimott’s conduct. The police investigation determined that none of the activity took place using school equipment or involved any of our students. The safety of students at the Academy has and will always be our paramount concern and we have robust safeguarding procedures which have been complied with.”

Brooke Weston Trust

The school is in partnership with the Corby Business Academy, which has replaced the former Corby Community College. The former principal of Corby Business Academy, Dr. Andrew Campbell, is the Chief Executive of the Academy Trust, with principals Janet Duggan and Peter Kirkbride respectively in charge of each school.

In September 2009, the Partnership became partly responsible for the running of the new Kettering Science Academy. This 3-18 school replaced both the Ise Community College and Henry Gotch Primary School.