Business
Holmer
Green Senior School has a long tradition of enterprise within the
school. It was one of the first to bring in Enterprise Days for Year 9
students in conjunction with the local Educational Business Partnership
and Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College who regularly
sponsored these events. The school also has volunteers from the
business community to support these events.
Past Enterprise Days have included:-
- Design a new board game
- Design the school of the future
- Tornado
- Fair Trade Day
- European Band Tour
- Plan events for with Nexus for Street Games
- Young Enterprise
The
school has regularly entered Year 10 and 12 students in the local Young
Enterprise competition whereby they run their own business with an
advisor.
Last year the year 12 team won the manufacturing prize for their hand-made eco-friendly bags.
Xing Competition
In
conjunction with Bucks New Uni, students from local schools and
colleges compete by creating a business plan and presentations.
In 2008 two of our sixth form students were on the winning
team, gaining £150 each in prize money.
Dreamflight
Sixth form students were the runners-up in the Dreamflight marketing competition.
Target 2.0
This
year some of our Year 13 students are taking part in the Bank of
England economics competition aiming to address the inflation
rate.
Other activities which we have recently run include:-
- Students
and staff visited Holmer Green Juniors for an enterprise day where they
designed a water feature for the school grounds
- Widmer
End Juniors enjoyed visits to and from the school to plan, cost, market
and cook a range of cakes.
- Students in Year 10/11 took part in e-skills at Oxford Brookes University
- Year 7/8/9 students got to visit British Airways training centre for an enterprise day
- Students undertook additional work experience at the newly opened Eden Centre
Our
aim is to give our students the chance to experience business first
hand either by inviting speakers in or by taking students to companies
like John Lewis, Honda, Cadbury, and University Business Departments
where they can find out more about how business works.
ICT
The
department aims to improve students’ understanding of the significance of information
technology for society and the individual, to provide the skills for the
application of information technology and to encourage informed use.
This involves work across the
curriculum as well as timetabled lessons of information communication technology
within the department.All subject areas
have access to computers within their departments and to the Computer
Suite.Considerable investment has been
made to ensure that students have experience of the recent developments in
equipment.This includes the provision
of wireless internet access across the school.
The
department itself is well resourced with a suite of rooms providing a total of more
than 100 computers.Full colour and
laser printing is available from all areas of the department.Scanning facilities are also available.
We also have 20 computers
dedicated for Sixth Form use only.
For
Years
7, 8 and 9 information communication technology skills are taught in
three lessons a fortnight.This provides students with the ability to
access and use a range of programmes that can support their work in all areas
of the curriculum.
All
students start their OCR National Qualification in Year 9 and have the
opportunity to achieve one GCSE equivalent qualification.At option time, students have the opportunity
to select ICT and achieve additional qualifications in ICT, extending the depth
and range of their ICT skills.
We
offer the Applied ICT A level, giving students opportunities to experience
‘real world’ ICT scenarios.
This
year has seen the launch of the school’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)
with resources available online both at home and at school, for many of our
classes.
In
2009, 52% of the whole Year 11 group gained A*- C grades in full GCSE,
a great result as they include those students whom had
availability in their timetables of only 1 period per week and 71% of
A2 level students gained an A – C grade.
Enterprise Champions
In
November our school entered ten Year 9 students into an
enterprise project. The students will represent the
school as Enterprise Champions throughout the year.
They attended the Aylesbury Civic Centre on the
19th of November for an introductory session on
enterprise. There they joined 13 other schools
from Buckinghamshire and learnt some enterprising skills
and got involved in enterprising activities. They also
got to hear how real life entrepreneurs developed their
skills.
This is a year long engagement and will involve the
students creating a media product and promoting it like
real enterprise champions. The competition result will
take place at the end of the school Year!
Ms C Shaughnessy
Lead Teacher Of ICT