Heathfield celebrates best year ever

11:12am Friday 28th November 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

LAST summer’s Year 11 leavers were presented with their exam certificates at the annual Heathfield Community School annual presentation evening.

A number of students also received special awards to recognise achievement and endeavour inside and outside the classroom.

Headteacher Elliott Furneaux said: “This was a very special year group.

“They not only achieved the best GCSE results in the school’s history, but they were also our most successful sporting year group ever in both boys and girls competitions - for example, in both winning the National Schools Basketball Championships.

“They were a year group who were really on-side with the staff and with each other, a real pleasure to work with for five years and we already miss them.”

*MEANWHILE, Heathfield has received Somerset County Council’s Dyslexia Friendly Award.

The accolade shows the school is able to support the learning of students with dyslexia and to help them realise their potential.

In working towards the award, the council helped the school identify its strengths and areas for development, while training enabled staff to identify and support students with learning differences.

Some of the training was even delivered by students who have dyslexia.

Ruth Garbett, head of additional learning needs, said: “We’re thrilled that the school has received this award in recognition of all the excellent work that takes place at Heathfield to help these students.”

*A GROUP of GCSE art students from Heathfield have flown across the Atlantic to get a taste of American culture.

They visited art museums and galleries in New York, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan, the Whitney and the Guggenheim.

The 33 students and five staff also went to the Statue of Liberty, Central Park and Ground Zero.

Head of art Natasha Rand said: “We decided our GCSE students, whose culture is so much influenced by American lifestyles, needed some creative inspiration from the USA.”