Forest Hill School

Form System

Each year group at the school is divided into forms. There are usually eight forms per year, organised by house. In years 7 through to 11 the forms are sorted into houses which the students keep from year 7, the house colours are Blue, Green, Red and Yellow. In years 10 and 11 there are separate teaching groups from the forms in all subjects. The sixth form at the school does not use the house system.

Houses

The four houses of Forest Hill are named after famous people of the 16th, 17th, 18th and early 20th centuries, each designated a colour which determines the colour of the trim on the school blazers worn by the pupils. While the house only initially determines which form the student is in, it forms the basis of sport teams throughout each pupil's career at the school. As such, friendly rivalries exist between each house especially at the end of every school year when students from year seven, eight, nine and ten take part in a sports day at the National Athletics Stadium at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. The houses compete to win the most points to win the best sporting house award, and another award is given to the house who was the most supportive (noise, banners, house colours for shirts) that day.

Originally there were six houses, but two were later dropped: Browning and Newton. When there were six houses Browning's house colour was red, Drake's dark blue, Reynold's light blue and Newton's maroon.

Pupils are recognised by the house they are in and by the code such as R9F (Reynolds, year 9, French or S11G (Shackleton, Year 11, German).

The letters stand for:

Student leadership

At the end of the Spring term, new Year 11 prefects are chosen, two from every form group. Leadership roles amongst the prefects include the Head, Deputy Heads and four House Captains for the student council. Other school prefects are divided between the roles of Duty Prefect and Form Prefect. The school also includes a school council which takes care of student issues and passes them on to the senior management and the headteacher. The school council works similar to the way that the form groups work, as two school councilors are chosen from each tutor group and in Year 9 a selected amount of them may become trainee prefects throughout year 10, this gives them a better chance to become prefects and house captains in Year 11.

Sports Hall

In 2006 the school's new £4.5M state-of-the-art sports facility was opened with lottery funding and help with Sport England and The FA Charter Standard Schools Program. The facility features a large air conditioned sports hall with basketball nets, indoor cricket, indoor football markings and goals and a scoreboard. The other part of the gym includes a fitness suite, cafè, space for trampolining and table tennis, new changing room facilities with showers and also two of the old three gyms. The sports centre opened on top of Gym 3, but was also expanded towards Bampton Road on the other side of the school.

Main building

The school began a major redevelopment project in July 2006 which completed in January 2008. The only part of the school which remains unchanged is the current art block, which was built recently. The rest of the school was entirely demolished and rebuilt from the ground up with the three floor plan changed to a higher four story building. The new school building now features a huge atrium which doubles up into a fully functioning theatre, two fully equipped drama rooms, a separate theatre, a fully equipped music department with a Recording studio and a Mac computer room. There is also a fully functional dance studio complete with sprung floors, mirrors, and a 600 watt speaker system, all of which enable the school to carry out its performing arts specialism.

Ofsted report

The school has received some very encouraging reviews from the school regulator Ofsted according to the 2004/05 prospectus. The regulator commented on the school in general and also on the pupil/staff relationship saying that it was "very close". They also said "Pupils are known, valued, cared for and supported very efficiently in order that they can achieve well."

Notable people educated at Forest Hill School