Ninestiles School

Ninestiles School An Academy is a secondary school with academy status situated in Acocks Green, Birmingham, England. It is a mixed comprehensive academy with 1,400 students, including 60 in the sixth form. It has over 1,000 laptops and the largest wireless network of any school in Europe.^[1] The current head teacher is Gaetano Ferrante.

Associations

It is the lead school in a federation headed by Sir Dexter Hutt, and associated with a consultancy company "Ninestiles Plus". The school was granted Technology College status in 1997 and became a foundation school in 1999. The school became an academy in 2011.

Ninestiles School is also connected with Fox Hollies Leisure Centre, giving the school access to a swimming pool, squash and badminton facilities, an astroturf pitch and a large field generally used for rugby, cricket and other outdoor sports.

Structure

Previously known as Harrison Barrow Grammar School for Girls and Hartfield Crescent. In 2003 a new building was built onto the site of Ninestiles, known as the ICT and Business Studies Block. The Building came into use for 2004, providing more ICT and Business Study Rooms.

In 2005, the school changed the length of its lessons to two and a half hours apiece. This, five years later was changed to one hour forty minutes to allow students to cope better with the lesson being shorter, therefore this would also make it easier for teachers not having to plan lessons as long. The change required some adaptation on the part of the school's faculty, including rotating subjects and planning extended trips.^[2]

At the beginning of the 2008-2009 school term, Ninestiles School changed to a system in which pupils from different year groups were placed in the same forms. They were split into six "colleges" called Red, Blue, Orange, Yellow, Green and Purple to represent the colours of the rainbow. The school has said that this will be an effective way for pupils to bond with other students of different ages, and also have the older students helping the younger ones. Additional upgrades to the school include a bigger student support Centre, new carpets, walls and furniture. In 2007, the school introduced Challenge Week(know known as activities week), an end-of-year event in which students have an opportunity to participate in trips and activities. In 2009 a new feature was introduced, TAG (talents, gifts and abilities). This gives students an opportunity to participate in a new activity that they haven't tried before or to take part in an activity that they enjoy. TAG no longer takes place due to it failing very badly and was scrapped in 2014.

The school is also partially selective by means of an entrance examination. 10% of places are given to children who have academic ability. Students are drawn from a wide area and the school is heavily over-subscribed.[1]

Ninestiles colleges

There are four colleges within the school. Each college comprises approximately sixteen classes, each of which contains approximately 15 students and a form tutor. Internal and external competitions are run which involve the colleges, it is called the ICC (inter-college competition) The colleges are: Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow.

Two other colleges had existed until 2012, but due to a refurbishment of the school, it was decided that only four colleges should stand. The remaining four colleges represent each faculty at Ninestiles: red represents the essentials faculty ; green represent the discovery faculty; blue represents the creativity & performance faculty and yellow represents the humanities faculty. The two colleges that were removed were orange and purple college. The ICC was stopped at the end of the 2012-13 term.

Uniform

All footwear has to be plain black. Ninestiles black sweatshirts, white polo shirts can be worn, and full length trousers can be worn. Girls can wear black, full length skirts, and shlwar kameez and hijab. During P.E., students wear a red polo T-shirt with logo or badge, black shorts with logo, and red football socks. Students can wear trainers during P.E.

No student can wear their black school sweatshirt during P.E. Optionally, students can wear black tracksuit bottoms, red P.E sweatshirt, or a plain black rugby shirt. Students are allowed to wear dark grey track suit bottoms if they wish

References

External links

• The Ninestiles School An Academy's Website