Chaucer Technology School

Chaucer Technology School

Type	Foundation, Comprehensive
Headteacher	Simon Murphy
Specialism	Technology
Location	Spring Lane Canterbury Kent CT1 1SU England
Local authority	Kent County Council
DfE URN	118924
Students	c.1320
Gender	Mixed
Ages	11–18
Houses	5 Colleges of Learning (Assisi, Athena, Curie, Da Vinci, Marlowe)
Colours	Navy      & Gold
Website	www.chaucer.ac.uk

Coordinates: 51°16′26″N 1°06′00″E / 51.2740°N 1.0999°E / 51.2740; 1.0999

Chaucer Technology School is a mixed ability comprehensive school, with designated technology status situated in Canterbury, Kent. It encompasses years 7 to 11 as well as a sixth form college. The current head teacher is Simon Murphy who joined the school on 2 September 2006, replacing the previous headteacher Mike Mayers. Chaucer Technology School claims it offers its pupils an unrivalled technological education and also claims to have outstanding ICT facilities and an emphasis upon developing cross curriculum problem solving skills and is part of the non-selective state secondary schools in Canterbury along with The Canterbury High School, St Anselm's Catholic School, the Church of England's Archbishop's School; all of which in 2007 had less than 30%^{[citation needed]} of their pupils gain five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and maths, except for the Archbishop's School which achieved 55%.

Expansion

Chaucer had a 12 classroom teaching block built. These previously housed a large majority of English and Maths Lessons, but now has been changed to cover Humanities subjects such as Geography and History (as a result of the College System). It is often referred to as the "Humanities Block", "H Block" or "W Block." W was after Graham Wade, the school's fifth headteacher, who died of cancer.

The school completed a new Sixth Form Building in October 2008. Named the Fuller Block, after a former Chair of the Governing Body who died, it houses a common room, assembly room, staff offices and multiple teaching rooms primarily for use by the Post 16 (or Sixth Form) of the school.

College System

In 2008, Chaucer introduced a new "Colleges of Learning" System, in which every student, aside from "Post 16/Sixth Form" students, are assigned into a specific subject group. The 5 colleges are named Da Vinci, Curie, Marlowe, Assisi and Athena and are made up of different subject areas (e.g. Da Vinci College includes Mathematics and Design Technology). Subject groups changed classrooms to reflect this shift and so generally the colleges are geographically situated around the school site.

Around the same time as the implementation of the college system, the school uniform was updated following a school-wide consultation, the senior management of the school was restructured and a re-branding of the school's image was completed, with the school now often referred to as "Chaucer Tech".

Press Coverage

In Spring 2009, Chaucer was used in a BBC Inside Out South East television news feature to highlight the issue of asbestos in local school buildings. it was detected in two small cupboards that were used to store asbestos before it was linked with lung disorders. The school was used as the case study example of one of the 90% of local schools with asbestos. The school was found to have asbestos (like 554 out of 599 schools in Kent^[1]) but was shown to have effectively dealt with the problem.

SIMS MIS by Capita

Chaucer Technology School is one of the many schools in the Kent LEA that uses the Management Information System (MIS) developed by Capita's Education Services, appropriately named SIMS (School Information Management System). The school also agreed with Capita to provide a case study, in which head teacher Simon Murphy says “It is fundamental for students to understand where they are and what strategies they need to reach their potential and for parents to also understand, so they can support their children. Using the tools within SIMS we are able to support this”.

External links

• School Website
• Schoolsnet.com - review of school
• DCFS Edubase Profile

References

1. ^ BBC Inside Out South East article