The Parliamentary Review
The Parliamentary Review is a platform for innovative and progressive UK businesses and schools to be heard addressing the challenges they face and sharing their insight. It highlights significant successes, developments and concerns for school leaders up and down the country.
Music Mark 2019/20
Music Mark 2019/20 – Influencing Supporting & Connecting: Birchensale Middle School has been recognised for the value that we place on music and we were invited to join the growing number of Music Mark School Members. This is down to the hard work of our teachers to ensure that pupils at our school are able to access and engage with a high-quality music education. Our dedication to offering and delivering a broad and balanced curriculum is both welcomed and celebrated.
School Games Gold Award
School Games – Gold The Sainsbury’s School Games Kitemark was launched in 2012 to reward schools for their commitment to competition. Birchensale Middle school achieved the Gold Kitemark recognising the quality of provision for extra-curricular sport within the school and local community, well attended by pupils of all ages and abilities. This award demonstrates the PE department’s commitment to School Competition, high quality delivery through their programme of School Sports Clubs and support of sport within Redditch and Worcestershire and the commitment of the pupils.
Eco Schools Green Flag
Eco-Schools – Green Flag: Eco Schools is an international programme which rewards schools for working hard on environmental topics to make the world a better place. It works by involving the whole school – pupils, teachers and supporting staff together with parents and members of the local community. It encourages teamwork and helps to create a shared understanding of what it takes to run a school in a way that respects and enhances the environment. Eco Schools is a recognised award scheme that accredits schools who make a commitment to continuously improve their environmental performance. There are 3 levels of award: Bronze, Silver and the Green Flag.
We are very proud to have been re-accredited as a ‘Green Flag’ Level Eco-School in July 2016, due to all the good work that has been taking place here at BMS.
Leading Parent Partnership Award
The school received this award as ‘an acknowledgement of our long-standing commitment to working with parents and other stakeholders, which has resulted in a highly effective range of provision’. The school were especially commended for;
‘the outstanding quality and range of communication with parents’
‘the many ways that parents’ views are sought, and the way the outcomes are considered and used in planning’
‘the very well-established and well supported opportunities for Family Learning and the way parents’ achievements are also celebrated’
‘the strong procedures for induction and transition based on effective liaison with pyramid schools’
‘the willingness of the school to work with outside agencies and to share good practice with other schools’
‘the many opportunities parents have to come to school to share in and celebrate its work’
If you would like to know more about LPPA please click here
ArtsMark Gold Award
Arts Council – Gold: Birchensale achieved ‘The Arts Mark Gold Award’ for a third time in a row in recognition of the impact that work in ‘The Arts’ has for our students. As well as our diverse curriculum offering Music, Dance, Drama, Art and Design; we also offer a broad cross curricular education where ‘The Arts’ enriches all subjects within school. We also pride ourselves on our arts projects within the community and will continue to work with visiting artists to develop these links. We have a strong history of Arts extra-curricular clubs and continue to have a rolling program of Drama productions and Music Concerts including Shakespeare and Arts festivals in addition to Exhibiting at the Voices and Visions Showcase and frequent theatre and music trips.
Healthy Schools
Healthy Schools We strongly believe it is important to inspire healthy living and we are delighted to have been recognised with the Healthy School Award – the Healthy School Programme promotes a whole school/whole child approach to health and has been in existence since 1999. Keeping healthy can have real benefit in respect of improvement in health and reduced health inequalities; in can help raise pupil achievement and can provide more social inclusion. The Healthy School Award was achieved for the way we approached the issue of childhood obesity within our community, this included the provision of healthier lunches provided by our caterers and a focus on improving the quality and content of packed lunches from home. Together with the provision of extra-curricular sports activities, to enhance the exercise of our pupils.
Leading Aspect Award
Leading Aspect Award The school has achieved this award twice for recognising and sharing innovative and creative leading practice in education. The first award was for ‘Developing Family and Community Partnerships’. This celebrated our work in Family Learning and the work we have performed in the local and national areas, as well as our charity work internationally. The second award was for ‘Removing barriers to Learning’. This celebrated our work with our Learning Mentor, Teaching Assistants and Inclusion Team on identifying issues that stopped children reaching their full potential and putting in numerous successful interventions to overcome them.
Stonewall School Champions
School children come from a variety of backgrounds and families. Celebrating different families and tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying is crucial to making all children feel welcome, and enabling them to learn to accept others for who they are. As a Stonewall School Champion Birchensale Middle School have committed to working with Stonewall to tackle all forms of discrimination and celebrate difference in our school.