Welcome to Buckler's Mead Academy AWS

Welcome to Buckler’s Mead Academy It is my privilege, as Headteacher of Buckler’s Mead, to welcome you to our academy and tell you a little more about us. Buckler’s Mead is for students aged 11-16, co-educational, and converted to an academy on 1st August 2011. We very much believe in serving our local community and the vast majority of our students live within walking distance. We have high aspirations for our students and high expectations. In 2012 Buckler’s Mead achieved its best ever GCSE results, placing it fourth within Somerset for the progress students make from their entry to leaving at the end of Year 11. In 2013 we were identified as top in Somerset for student progress 11-16. We were also named in the top 100 most improving schools in England for 20122013. We are very proud of students and their achievements. We frequently talk about “opening doors” for our students in the future and learning is central to this. We aim to ensure that Buckler’s Mead students are happy, interested and engaged in their learning and responsible, confident, successful members of the community. We are very proud of the strong, positive relationships which exist within and beyond the academy. We invest time in building these relationships and have a number of staff who are dedicated solely to pastoral work, ensuring that you can have easy access and continuity in who you contact if you need to talk to someone about your son/daughter. Parental surveys are undertaken regularly by Buckler’s Mead Directors, who attend a number of events throughout the year to meet and listen to parents. These indicate that over 97 % would recommend Buckler’s Mead to another parent. In October 2012 OFSTED visited and praised many aspects of our provision, including commenting on: students’ enjoyment of their time here, politeness and good manners; behaviour and attendance, how safe the students feel; the rapid progress made as an academy and the commitment to success for all students. Over the last three years we have invested heavily in our resources, improving the provision for all students and staff. This includes extra staffing to reduce class sizes, new classrooms, more study areas, updated ICT, improved outdoor spaces and expanded sports facilities. Please take the time to look through our website for further information and more details about us. However we believe that any website or prospectus can only give you a flavour of the academy and what we stand for. It cannot truly give you a feel for the atmosphere or the quality of work and relationships within it so we would like to invite you to meet staff and students during a working day and find out more about us. We would be delighted to meet you. To arrange this please contact my PA Deborah StPaul on 01935 424454 or e-mail her on: [email protected] Yours sincerely Sara Gorrod Headteacher