The Crestwood School
| Motto | Service Not Self |
|---|---|
| Established | 1975 |
| Type | Academy |
| Headteacher | Mr Tony Bowles |
| Location |
Bromley Lane Kingswinford West Midlands DY6 8QG England  Coordinates: 52°29′26″N 2°09′05″W / 52.49061°N 2.15139°W |
| Local authority | Dudley |
| DfE number | 332/4000 |
| DfE URN | 141325 Tables |
| Ofsted | Reports Pre-academy reports |
| Students | 753 |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Ages | 11–16 |
| Houses | Invincible, Discovery, Endeavour, Victory and Warrior |
| Colours | Orange, Blue, Green, Red and Yellow |
| Former name | Brierley Hill Grammar School |
| Website | Crestwood School |
The Crestwood School is a secondary school in Kingswinford, West Midlands, England.
Admissions
It is an 11-16 comprehensive school with some 700 students on the roll, averaging at around 140 per year group.
History
Grammar school
The school was started during the 1930s as Brierley Hill Intermediate School in Mill St., Brierley Hill town. It became Brierley Hill Technical School before becoming a Grammar School in the 1950s with pupils from the Urban District and other parts of South Staffs Education Authority area and Brierley Hill Parliamentary district. The Grammar School relocated to new purpose-built premises in Bromley Lane, the current building, in 1959.
Comprehensive
It went comprehensive and was renamed The Crestwood School in 1975 and has since expanded to serve the eastern area of Kingswinford which was mainly developed after the Second World War. It stands on the border of Kingswinford and Brierley Hill townships.
The school had a sixth form until July 1991.
Easier access for students
In August 2006, the school completed work to insert a lift and adjoining corridors between the two main education "blocks" - A block and B block. A consequence of this is that students are now able to cross between the two blocks without having to go in a "up-and-down" fashion.
Proposal to merge into an academy
In December 2007, plans were unveiled to merge Crestwood with nearby Pensnett High School to form an academy, but these plans were scrapped 15 months later.
Recent years
In May the Head Teacher Mrs Maxine Suthons banned energy drinks including Red Bull from the school amid concerns that they fuelled disruptive behaviour by pupils. This event proved to be controversial through the eyes of the media. Now there are vending machines that sell energy drinks. [1]
In 2012, Head Teacher Mrs Maxine Suthons retired and Mr T Bowles (Deputy Head) has taken over to continue the progress of Crestwood School.
Over the school holidays, The Crestwood school had implanted CCTV Cameras in and around the school to improve security and, after two years, the refurbishment of the school's Science laboratories was completed.
On 1 March 2015 the school converted to academy status.
Summary and Campus 21
Crestwood is one of the more successful secondary schools in the area and is part of a project that involves a Primary School and a school with Special Educational Needs. These schools work with each other. The area known as Campus 21 has benefited from investment including the building of The Brier School (SEN 5-19) and a new sports hall. The Drama department is one of the most successful subjects in the school, each year they perform for the National Youth Theatre, the recent performance was Ruckus In The Garden. There is a current drama project going under-way for the Shakespeare's school festival 2010 which the Drama group will perform 'Romeo And Juliet'
Two systems used within Crestwood include the Buddy system, whereby year 10 pupils work with new year 7 in a bid to help them settle in after such a major change. There is also a group of ambassadors where year 11 pupils assist teachers in the day to day monitoring of pupils.
Extra-curricular
Extra qualifications and courses include Critical Thinking AS level, for more gifted students, hosted by King Edward VI College, and vocational opportunities at local colleges.
Other activities include debates, swimming galas and historic visits.
For option choices pupils have the choice to take: P.E, Food technology, Product design, Geography, History, R.E, I.C.T, Drama, Art or Music as their main GCSE Course, or they have the choice to go to a local college and study different courses including: Animal management, Hair And Beauty, Construction, Business Studies, Child Care and many other courses.
Special Educational Needs
Crestwood has a very active SEN policy, with a higher than average proportion of SEN pupils than most other schools, this has been bolstered recently by the introduction of a scheme whereby Crestwood becomes the major centre for deaf or hard of hearing pupils throughout the Dudley Metropolitan Borough.
The House System
The House System is now fully implemented having been introduced to pupils in a series of assemblies in July 2009. Each house consists of at least one class from each year group. After pupils and staff had voted which list of names they liked best as a title for each house the system with the greatest number of votes was Famous Ship Names.
There is a member of staff who has pastoral responsibilities for each House. This management structure replaced the Head of Year system where a member of staff dealt with issues that arose from pupils who belonged to a particular year group.
This new method of grouping pupils in this vertically integrated way will have a number of benefits for students and it is envisaged that it will result in the smoother running of Crestwood.
Each house is now identified by a different colour. This colour is integrated into the school badge that is worn on a blazer. The school is very grateful to Totally Uniformed who have helped us to finance this change. The result is that current pupils have been given a new house badge to replace the old one that they had.
The first time the house system was incorporated into the life of Crestwood was for Sports Day on Tuesday 14 July 2009
The school badge had been changed due to The House system being introduced, with the rim of the badge being the colour of the house they are in. The colours and names for each house are:
- Invincible - Orange
- Discovery - Blue
- Endeavour - Green
- Victory - Red
- Warrior - Yellow
Crestwood is considered to be the most improved school in Dudley so far.
Alumni
Brierley Hill Grammar School
- Kevin Roberts - Director General of the Meat and Livestock Commission