Celebrating HPSS status
The Charter School was awarded High Performing Specialist School Status (HPSS) in April . This was because of our improving examination results and excellent added value scores. This means that we are allowed to choose a second specialism. We already are a specialist school for Business & Enterprise. We chose science because of our belief in the importance of the subject. To celebrate this we held a lecture on Wednesday entitled, The Evolution of Evolution. This was delivered by Professor Phil Whitfield with Dr Ann Bartlett. Staff, A Level students, parents, governors and other VIPs from the local and business community were enthralled by the talk.
The lecture was inspirational and included anecdotes which included the work down by Darwin’s Great, great, great grandson who used to live in Dulwich on the Tiger Moth. He discovered after many years of painstaking research that they had evolved to block the sonar used by bats to hunt them….
Prof Whitfield is Vice Principal at King's College London where he has taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level for the past 40 years. He is a zoologist with a particular interest in parasites and his research has included studies on the ultrastructure of parasites, their ecology and epidemiology. Latterly, in collaboration with Dr Ann Bartlett, he has worked in the laboratory and field on the blood fluke that causes Bilharzia. This work has resulted in identification of an inexpensive and safe method of preventing infection with this parasite which at present infects at least 200 million people in the tropics.
Dr Ann Bartlett - Senior Research Fellow in parasitic disease research at King's College London. Research career began with work on the immune responses of hosts, including humans, to parasitic infections. She was a member of the team that developed and established a molecular diagnostic technique (ELISA) used today in hospitals and laboratories throughout the world for diagnosis of all infectious diseases and biochemical analysis of body fluids. Later work has concentrated on the development of new forms of treatment for parasitic infections responsible for globally significant disease.
Over recent years Dr Bartlett and Prof Whitfield have given master class sessions on behalf of King's College, on scientific topics at a number of secondary schools in south London, including The Charter School.
This is a copy of Mr Sheppard's speech.
We applied for HPSS in science with an emphasis on Gifted & Talented provision because we believe in science. Incredibly science has seemed more under attack than ever in the last few years but we are clear that science is one of the pillars of our civilization. Everybody depends on science for every aspect of their life in an advanced civilization and he only way we and future generations will meet the challenge of sustaining life is through science. It is essential that the education system produces young people who understand science and can make important contributions through it.
We will use our specialism to develop subject expertise and thereby to significantly improve our maths and science KS4 results. We are delighted that this summer’s science results are the best in the school’s history. We will develop the success of science at KS3.
Science plays an important part in innovative teaching and learning. We say in school ‘ we must light fires’ in children’s imaginations and in science we do that – literally! Science is also at the heart of curriculum innovation because it straddles the divide – the false divide – between the academic and the vocational, intellectual and the practical. Science is a compelling intellectual discipline – but it also does things – it effects change in what we do practically. Good science changes the way people understand the world but also what people do in the world.
Science has always been the pursuit of individual enquiry and our gifted & talented provision aims to foster and develop that sense of enquiry.
Ours Specialist Status allows us to build more partnerships across the communities we serve and relate to. Educational partnerships with local schools of both phases and all types, so we can use our expertise to support and share developments. Business, industry and health partnerships because we know successful scientists will make their contribution inside these organisations in the future. Partnerships with parents too, so that they are better informed about how science is central to their children’s lives and their families futures.
We are delighted to welcome Prof Phil Whitfield - Vice Principal and Dr Ann Bartlett, Senior Research Fellow, King's College London to launch our HPSS status. Their lecture could not be more timely or relevant to what we are trying to do. Darwin 200 recognised the achievement of a single man whose work changed the way we all understand the world. This lecture celebrates that his work has been taken up by many scientist, but has also influenced social sciences, the arts and humanities. Great science changes everyone’s understanding, but also everyone’s lives.
Last Modified: 09/10/2009
