Sir Thomas Picton School

History

It is named after Sir Thomas Picton, (August, 1758 – 18 June 1815), a Welsh military leader who fought in a number of campaigns for Great Britain, and rose to the rank of lieutenant general. He is chiefly remembered for his exploits under the Duke of Wellington in the Iberian Peninsular War and at the Battle of Waterloo, where he was mortally wounded while his division stopped d'Erlon's corps attack against the allied centre left, and so became the most senior officer to die at Waterloo.

The school was not built as an old military hospital. However it was built with this use in mind, hence single storey structure with very few steps. It copies the basic Government design e.g. the old Odstock hospital. It was built in 1954, alongside the Government offices at Cherry Grove, as the new secondary modern school and the land was previously agricultural. The school has recently improved its facilities, with new science laboratories and refurbished toilets. The school is now widely regarded as having the finest school toilets in Wales. It is known for its sports facilities, including the onsite sports hall, the gymnasium, the tennis courts, the running track and athletics area and full size astroturf.

Facilities

The school is very much about creating a caring environment for pupils, and has a very active school council system. There are many unique facilities at the school, including new science labs, ICT facilities and an extensive range of vocational studies to choose from. The school operates under the flawed Haverfordwest federation, whereby the school can share resources with other nearby educational establishments, such as Pembrokeshire College and Tasker-Milward VC School.

The school is split into different wings, labelled from A-H.

Pupils

The school has 1167 pupils on its roll as of June 2010, of whom 200 attend sixth form lessons. Pupil support is a very important aim of the school, so there are many facilities available in school to help pupils, such as a school counselling service, a peer mentoring system, and form tutor mentoring. Additionally, the school installed postboxes in every classroom into which suggestions, complaints, questions and concerns could be deposited. However, the postboxes fell out of use and are no longer used. However, a "Bully Button" on the Sir Thomas Picton website allows children to submit statements about anything they feel unsafe about to a senior member of staff, who will speak to them in school.

Notable ex-pupils

The environment

One of the school's major aims is to improve the way in which the environment around the building is treated, and also the overall contribution of greenhouse emissions from the school. Policies such as removing the knob to open and close valves that control the heat output of radiators have been accepted well by staff. This means that to cool a classroom down, a window/door must be opened. The decision has vastly improved the school's energy efficiency, as fuel that is burnt to heat up the school simply goes out of the window. Many more schools in the local area are said to be looking into implementing this innovative scheme to cut costs and improve the energy efficiency of their buildings. There have been large scale projects to replace the older windows with double-glazing to conserve heat energy, and plans to install a wind turbine to help meet the school's rising energy needs are well underway, which may supply 10–15% of its required electrical energy. Pupils and staff also wear extra layers of clothing during winter, especially on Fridays when the school boilers are turned off to save energy.

Extra-curricular activities

There are many extra activities and facilities for pupils to attend/use outside of lesson time. Some examples are:

-Extr@STP
-Blue Lagoon (Peer mentoring)