"Specialist Technology Status has brought the
school many benefits" Year 10 Student

Technology Specialism

The school obtained specialist Technology status in 2004 and has continued to benefit from being part of a national schools network through the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.  The impact of technology across the curriculum has raised standards through improved student engagement.  Interactive Whiteboards in every classroom has led to creative learning and teaching across the school.

In Technology students are able to use industrial style technology with CAD CAM design and laser cutting equipment in well resourced rooms.  The most recent piece of equipment enables students to transfer prints and designs to crockery, fabric and plastic.  In Science lessons teachers are able to show animations of experiments and real life situations that cannot be set up in the laboratory.

In the last Ofsted report (May 2007) the inspectors reported that, “Specialist technology status has brought the school many benefits and students are enthusiastic about using ICT to take their learning forward in many lessons.  Technology status has stimulated their motivation and good progress subjects, for example, science and design technology.”

School management and administration systems have been improved through the use of ICT.  All registration is electronic, communication with parents is through e-mail wherever possible, or text messaging with reminders of important events.  All assessment data, with student potential grades and forecast grades, is stored electronically.  This makes it easier to share the data with students and track their progress.

Our community work continues to expand and develop. We have excellent links with our partner primary schools and the annual Science/Maths Challenge evening has become an enjoyable and popular event for Year 6 students and their parents.  The annual Science Lecture open to the whole local community has seen a cross section of the local community coming to hear and see an inspiring lecture on Light and hear from a Russian cosmonaut about rearing chickens in space!

Students from Years 6 and 5 in the primary schools enjoy coming to use the Woking High School Science and Technology facilities, certificates and receive confirmation of their involvement. 

Adults in the community also benefit as a result of our status and have taken part in on line and face to face accredited courses in Literacy, Numeracy and ICT.

There are many other areas where we work with the wider community and this was also recognised in the 2007 Ofsted report. “the school provides excellent opportunities to link with the community”.

Participation in some exciting challenges continues and we look forward to events this year when students will engage in further programmes e.g Toyota Challenge, Surrey Education Business Partnership, Science/Technology Problem Solving, Maths Olympiad.

As our curriculum continues to develop with the Diploma access, Catering, Electronics and many other opportunities across the school, we look forward to continued growth that will reflect Woking High School as a high achieving specialist school of the 21st century.

L Kyriacou
Vice Principal