Over the past few years, as we have grown in size, Highfields College has increasingly developed specific centres with distinct purposes and identities – some like The Bridge and the PLC even have their own badge and uniform. We find this really helps our students ‘find their place’ within the college – and on those occasions where difficulties do happen, it also allows our students to move and find a fresh start elsewhere within our fold.
As part of our planning for the 26/27 academic year, we have decided to rename the two main buildings on our Main Campus (Essex Road, Brinnington). We are renaming our KS4 Main Building as ‘Compass’ – and we are renaming KS3 Extension building as ‘Nexus’.
Compass relates to the idea of finding direction. We think this represents well the core focus of this area of our college, which is around primarily Year 10 and Year 11 students undertaking a range of academic, personal development and vocational-themed courses to develop a thirst for future learning / training at post-16 – and to have an achievement portfolio of qualifications and awards that will help them get there. This area of our college functions like a ‘miniature secondary school’ with students moving around to different classrooms and teachers for their subjects. Over the past few years we have found some Year 9s prefer this environment and we feel the rebrand will help make this feel more inclusive to them too.
Nexus relates to the idea of finding connection. We think this is a good expression of what this area of the college seeks to focus on, mainly with our Year 7 to Year 9 groups, in terms of re-engaging students in school, developing their capacity to trust adults as figures of guidance and authority and being able to work positively around peers. In this setting students are located within a base and work with a small number of key staff, made up of qualified teachers and mentors, for their entire day. The focus here is on core subject learning alongside a range of personal development opportunities. On occasion we have some Year 10s who need this model of education too – Nexus rather than KS3 Extension will likely help them feel more positively about this move, rather than potentially feeling like they are being ‘put back a year’.
The times of the school day and subjects studied will remain the same. There also won’t be any change in logo and uniform. This is primarily a change in language.
More about the work of each of the college’s centres can be found here. If you have any queries about this, please call the college on 0161 4067922 and we will get a member of our team to talk this through further with you.
