Coombe Wood School

Mission

Displaying and developing the human values of teamwork, respect, enjoyment, discipline and sportsmanship

About Us

To meet the local rising demand, CWS opened in the heart of South Croydon in September 2018 to 180 Year 7 students. By adding a new Year 7 cohort every year and opening a 6th form in September 2021, it will be catering for years 7-13 by September 2022.

Our year groups are also full to bursting! Following a hugely successful opening period, CWS has received in excess of 1,600 applications for 180 Year 7 places in the last two years. Our two feeder primary schools within the Trust, St Peter’s and Park Hill, take up their full allocation of feeder spaces every year and we have a growing number of children of staff attending the school.

Beyond the £35 million new-build on our 30-acre site, we still have extensive green space at our disposal with outdoor learning opportunities including amphitheatres, chickens and bee keeping facilities already in place to enrich our students’ life skills and experiences.

Students at CWS are bright, well-motivated and an absolute pleasure to work with, so it is no surprise that they demand the best from members of staff. The determination to deliver the very best for our students is shared by a very dedicated and talented team who are always looking at ways to improve the quality of their work and ensure all students discover and reach their full potential.

Our core values of Teamwork, Respect, Enjoyment, Discipline and Sportsmanship underpin the way in which we work and describe our determination to deliver the best outcomes for our students

Learning and Teaching at Coombe Wood School

The focus on learning and teaching at CWS is relentless. Whether it be teachers planning exciting lessons, students engaging and working to their very best, parents sending their children to school in stunning uniform after a good night’s sleep or indeed the support staff at CWS making sure everything runs smoothly, it is fair to say that many people invest time every day in making our classrooms special places of learning.

Our job is to make sure they stay special, every lesson, every day. That is why the leadership group visits every lesson every day and staff benefit from regular learning and teaching development sessions, looking for new ways to improve their teaching styles and techniques.

For Key Stage 3 and 4, CWS focuses upon delivering a broad and balanced curriculum that includes a range of academic and practical subjects that aim to provide students with opportunities to develop their academic, creative and practical skills.

At A level as well as at GCSE, CWS will draw and share expertise from its partner secondary school within Folio Trust, Wallington County Grammar School (WCGS), to establish a curriculum offering that is academically strong and challenging where appropriate. For those students who choose to stay at CWS for Sixth Form, their academic performance at GCSE will be of the highest level matching that of local selective provision. We expect the majority of Coombe Wood Sixth Form students to move into university study in the UK or to access the US College system with the support of the Trust.

We ensure that skilled teaching and excellent pastoral care combine to create outstanding provision for our students. In ensuring progress levels well above national averages and adding value to all students, we will achieve excellent outcomes.

We do not just have happy students, we have students who are going places and who, as our mission statement says, are given every opportunity to discover and reach their true personal best.

Professional Development

We aim to provide each and every member of staff at CWS with opportunities to reflect on and develop in their role because we believe that continuing professional development is essential to ensuring that students are safe, supported and able to make progress in their studies.

A range of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) opportunities are provided for all staff, including:

• Weekly whole school CPD sessions
• Weekly departmental/subject CPD sessions
• Comprehensive Early Career Teacher (ECT) programme that includes weekly Professional Studies sessions
• Middle leadership CPD
• A CPD library for staff
• Developmental Drop Ins where all staff are able to participate in paired lesson drop-ins to share good practice and create an environment where a reciprocal coaching approach to CPD underpins staff development
• Access to The National College – an online CPD platform that enables staff to access CPD remotely
• External speakers delivering world class research based

CPD during INSETs

• Access to National Professional Qualifications (NPQ) following successful completion of the ECT programme
• External CPD sessions that can be individually and/or requested based upon staff developmental need to ensure that staff are able to develop and progress in their current roles