Greendown Community School
Encyclopedia
Greendown Community School is a mixed sex comprehensive
Comprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...

 secondary school
Secondary school
Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

 for pupils aged between 11 and 16 years. It is situated in the Grange Park area of Swindon
Swindon
Swindon is a large town within the borough of Swindon and ceremonial county of Wiltshire, in South West England. It is midway between Bristol, west and Reading, east. London is east...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, adjacent to Lydiard Country Park
Lydiard Country Park
Lydiard Park is a country park at Lydiard Tregoze, west of central Swindon, Wiltshire, UK near Junction 16 of the M4 .The park contains Lydiard House, the former residence of the St John family, the Viscounts Bolingbroke...

. The school has been awarded dual specialist status as a Sports College
Sports College
Sports Colleges were introduced in 1997 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in the United Kingdom. The system enables secondary schools to specialise in certain fields, in this case, PE, sports and dance. Schools that successfully apply to the Specialist Schools Trust and become Sports...

 and Maths and Computing College. As of 2004, there are 1267 students enrolled at the school. It has also recently been awarded Academy status, changing it's name to Lydiard Park Academy. The Uniform has not yet been changed, and will be in September 2012.

History

The school opened in 1986, along with the area being built. In the late 1990s the school was getting more pupils and so it needed some extra accommodation. This led to a prefabricated humanities block (which was sold off in 2011) and a prefabricated music block (which is still in use). Later the former humanities block was done up. The walls were thickened, the lino became carpet and air conditioning was added. In 2003 the school was getting more pupils and so a second sports hall was added and new maths classrooms were built. In 2010 the school added an ASD Centre (see main section below).

School Uniform

For year 7,8 and 9 key stage 3, the uniform consists of a sky blue t-shirt and a maroon sweatshirt. For year 10 and 11 key stage 4 the uniform consists of a sky blue t-shirt and a black sweatshirt. Both sweatshirts have the school logo in the top right hand corner, next to the sleeve.

The ASD Centre

The school was the second in Swindon
Swindon
Swindon is a large town within the borough of Swindon and ceremonial county of Wiltshire, in South West England. It is midway between Bristol, west and Reading, east. London is east...

 to gain a unit for children with forms of Autism, the first being Kingsdown. Work started in the summer of 2010 and it finally opened on November 19, 2010. Before this is was held in a room which has now been converted into an ordinary classroom.

Specialist Status

Greendown was awarded specialist status in 2007, it is now a specialist college in Sport, Maths, and Computing. With the grant that was awarded, a School Gym was brought, a new astroturf was built, all computers in the school were upgraded and every mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 classrooms were introduced with interactive whiteboards.

Qualifications

Greendown school teaches GCSE and BTEC:
  • Mathematics
    Mathematics
    Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

  • English Language
    English language
    English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

    /English Literature
    English literature
    English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

    /Media Studies
    Media studies
    Media studies is an academic discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history and effects of various media; in particular, the 'mass media'. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly from its core disciplines of mass...

     (Only two of these are chosen, however English Language is compulsory.)
  • Science
    Science
    Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

  • Physical Education
    Physical education
    Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....

     (GCSE and BTEC)
  • Business Studies
    Business studies
    Business studies is an academic subject taught at higher level in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom, as well as at university level in many countries...

    /Business Communication Systems
  • Geography
    Geography
    Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

    /History
    History
    History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

    /Religious Studies
    Religious studies
    Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.While theology attempts to...

    /Philosophy and Ethics/Sociology
    Sociology
    Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

  • Drama
    Drama
    Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

    /Art Textiles/Art
    Art
    Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

    /Music
    Music
    Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

    /Music Technology
    Music technology
    Music technology is a term that refers to all forms of technology involved with the musical arts, particularly the use of electronic devices and computer software to facilitate playback, recording, composition, storage and performance. This subject is taught at many different educational levels,...

  • Spanish
    Spanish language
    Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

    /French
    French language
    French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

    /Italian
    Italian language
    Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

     (Other minor languages are studied by few pupils.)
  • Engineering
    Engineering
    Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

     (Diploma)/Home Economics
    Home Economics
    Home economics is the profession and field of study that deals with the economics and management of the home and community...

    /Catering
    Catering
    Catering is the business of providing foodservice at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, public house , or other location.-Mobile catering:A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle or cart that is designed for the purpose...

  • Health and Social Care
    Health and Social Care
    In the UK, Health and Social Care is a broad term that relates to integrated services that are available from health and social care providers...

  • ICT
    Information and communication technologies
    Information and communications technology or information and communication technology, usually abbreviated as ICT, is often used as an extended synonym for information technology , but is usually a more general term that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of...


Global Status

Greendown is twinned with a secondary school
Secondary school
Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

 in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. Moriting Wa Thuto in Clarens
Clarens
Clarens is the name of several places:* Clarens, Free State, a town in Free State Province, South Africa* Clarens, Hautes-Pyrénées, a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department of southwestern France...


Improvements

As of February, 2011, Greendown has applied to become an Academy rather than a Community School. The current plans are for it to be called Lydiard Paark Academy and the new colours will be navy and yellow.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK