Keswick School

Keswick School is an 11-18, Voluntary Aided, co-educational school. It retains a traditional atmosphere, including uniform, speech days, prefects and Head Boys and Girls and has carefully selected the most appropriate of the educational initiatives on offer in the last decade. Its facilities include boarding accommodation , school-wide internet now linked to all its primary partners, a flourishing extra curricular programme in major sports, outdoor education, music and drama and it offers a wide range of other opportunities for those in the school, including foreign exchanges and visits and charity events. It has achieved Specialist Science Status and is one of a few Leading Edge schools sharing and spreading good teaching ideas. [http://www.keswick.cumbria.sch.uk]

About The School

Awards

Keswick School was awarded Beacon Status in September 2000 and in a unique arrangement its partner schools were the 12 secondary schools of the Western Consortium of Cumbria. The school carried out a number of projects under the Beacon programme, many of which were in the area of continuing professional development of teachers. Over the three years of Beacon funding the school, in consultation with partner schools and with LEA advisors, organised in the region of 100 INSET events for secondary teachers throughout Cumbria. In a different project the school funded a group of teachers from Keswick and other local schools to write a course for the new Applied GCSE in ICT. The course was piloted in 10 schools during 2002/2003 and is now in use in over half of the secondary schools in Cumbria. Teacher training for the course has been supported by the Cumberland Building Society and the LEA has funded the production of interactive materials for the course.

Keswick Area Schools Networking

Brief description of the project

The Keswick Area Schools Networking Together project aims to connect computer networks at the five local primary schools in the Keswick area to the Keswick School computer system. This not only allows the schools to obtain fast Internet access via 10MB fibre links between the schools but also allows the entire group of schools to be part of a single network managed from Keswick School. Over 1500 pupils and 125 staff in the area are now part of this network, the first of its kind in a rural area.

Budget

The six feeder primary schools received a collaborative project grant from the LEA of about £2,000 to pay for their new network cabling. The schools themselves financed the PCs and servers needed to hook up to the network, using additional money from their own budgets which had been set aside for ICT upgrades. Keswick School used leading-edge funding: in the first year, £15,000 was spent on equipment and engineering time to set up the network; since then, about £5,000-£6,000 has been spent on running costs every year.

Cumbria and Lancashire Education Online (CLEO) paid for a fast broadband link for schools on the program at an estimated cost of £25,000-£30,000. [http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/casestudies/casestudy.cfm?id=309]

Boarding

Keswick School is one of 35 State Boarding Schools in England and Wales. The Lairthwaite Boarding house was purpose built on the edge of the school site and has been recently refurbished . It is a co-educational house designed to meet the needs of over 50 students aged 11-18.

Links

The Gambia

Keswick School is currently funding a Gambian Nuresy For Ages 2 - 10, and also is taking part in trips out there for year 10 & 12 pupils.

Königslutter

Keswick School had an exchange with a school in Königslutter. This has been going on for 42 years.

External links

* [http://www.keswick.cumbria.sch.uk School Website]
* [http://schoolsfinder.direct.gov.uk/9095414/school-profile/ School Profile]