Hounsdown School
- A Science College
Prospectus
“Be The Best That You Can Be”
Have A Mind To Be Kind
Welcome to Hounsdown School
Dear Parents/Carers,
ETHOS & AIMS
Our Vision is to be an outstanding educational provider, offering every young person the highest possible quality teaching, support, challenge and resources which help them help themselves to be the best that they can be.
To achieve this we continually seek to:
• Operate at high levels of TRUST and CHALLENGE for all
• Be safe and prioritise our safeguarding duties as a community
• Build trusted working relationships as the bedrock for successful education
• Provide an excellent learning environment and experiences
• Remember that resilient young people learn good lessons from mistakes and personal challenges
• Constantly reflect on how we can improve as a school community
The highest levels of personal growth and achievement lead to collective success by doing ‘the right things right’ with honesty and integrity.
For students we provide:
• A rich and varied curriculum
• High quality outstanding teaching
• Supportive and highly effective pastoral care
• Excellent, well-maintained facilities
• Strong academic results
• A commitment from the staff and governors that ‘getting better never stops’
Be the best that you can be
At Hounsdown School we show our best by being:
Prompt
Prepared
Productive
for school and lessons.
to engage positively in our learning and to take advantage of new opportunities.
in all aspects of school life including completing work and homework to the best of our ability.
Have a mind to be kind
At Hounsdown School we show kindness by being:
Proud of all members of the Hounsdown community and committed to maintaining its reputation.
Polite
to everyone by treating them with respect and integrity.
Patient and waiting your turn, listening to others and valuing their opinions.
‘Pupils enjoy learning and have positive attitudes to school. They are keen to succeed and they value all the ways in which their teachers motivate and support them’ Ofsted 2024
Learning at Hounsdown School is exciting, challenging and fulfilling and we hope that, once you have read our prospectus, you will want your young person to become part of our community.
Mr D Veal - Headteacher
Hounsdown School
The Learning Environment
Situated between West Totton and the New Forest, our attractive 20 acre site provides fantastic school and local community facilities on one site. Superbly maintained and continually modernised accommodation includes:
• Ten science laboratories
• Five networked computer rooms
• Extra specialist computer facilities
• Photography classroom
• Purpose built Art, History & Learning Support blocks
• Drama studios
• Music classrooms including a recording suite, Dance studio, Technology/ Design rooms
• Modern Sports Hall
• Gymnasium
• Heated indoor swimming pool
• A well-stocked Library
• Bespoke Well-being Hub and Attendance Provision
The Curriculum
We are committed to teaching a broad, balanced and relevant curriculum to the highest standards. A wide range of experiences over five years meet and go beyond the requirements of the National Curriculum. Teaching and Learning methods used are varied and used flexibly to meet students’ needs. Our continual focus is to seek to help every student confidently improve upon their previous best.
Teaching Groups
We strive to ensure that work closely matches students’ abilities as well as being challenging so that learning moves forward. Students are taught in a range of ability groupings to enable this to happen. We use mixed ability grouping, setting and grouping by previous attainment according to need. At least termly we review groupings and make changes as we track students’ progress throughout the year. Typically, the amount of setting by prior attainment increases as students’ progress through the school.
‘Teachers are knowledgeable and passionate about inspiring pupils to learn their subjects’ Ofsted 2024
‘Pupils experience a rich, well-designed and varied curriculum. Leaders have identified what pupils need to learn and the ambitious end points in each subject’ Ofsted 2024
Key Stage 3 (Years 7 and 8)
There is a common curriculum for all students taught over two years. All students currently study English (Language, Literature and Media), Mathematics, Science, French or Spanish, Ethics & Beliefs, Geography, History, Art, Music, Drama, Design Technology, Physical Education, Information and Communication Technology and Personal and Social Education and Citizenship (PSHCE).
Theme days give students extra opportunities for PSHCE education with a variety of topics delivered by external visitors.
A Transition group supports a small number of students in Year 7 and 8 who benefit from being taught by fewer teachers and having more support in English and Maths.
Key Stage 4 (Years 9, 10 and 11)
Core GCSE qualifications are delivered in English Language, English Literature, Mathematics, Science (Combined and Separate) and Ethics & Beliefs. Geography and / or History GCSEs and French or Spanish GCSEs are also taught according to the curriculum pathway followed.
Option subjects start in Year 9 and include Art, Business Studies, Computing, Dance, Design Technology (Resistant Materials), Drama, Food & Nutrition, Graphic Products, Media, Music, Photography and Physical Education.
Option courses include both traditional GCSE qualifications and other Level 2 qualifications of equivalent standard to GCSE. These are used where the course better suits the needs of the subject and students.
Personalised programmes for some students may also include vocational courses and work related learning, including courses provided by local colleges with specialist facilities.
Assessing Learning
Tracking and monitoring students’ progress is central in helping us understand how to help students improve and succeed. In class and subject assessment is used throughout the year so that students and teachers clearly know what a student needs to do to improve in each subject. Parents are kept regularly updated with progress reports scheduled across the year.
A variety of intervention and mentoring programmes over five years are used to target support where it may be needed.
‘Leaders carefully monitor how well pupils are learning the important knowledge they need in each subject’ Ofsted 2024
Hounsdown School
Additional Needs
Our aspiration for any learning support or additional need intervention is to work with the young person and help them develop towards their own personal best. Interventions are typically designed to take a fixed period of time and give targeted support, with regular reviews of progress. We want young people to learn to be as independent of that support as possible in their five years with us, developing the knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully move on to the next phase of their learning at College, Apprenticeship and beyond.
Learning Support
Learning Support offers a suite of programmes for students with Special Education Needs. The SENCo team welcomes discussions with parents to plan how to overcome barriers to learning.
‘The school has clearly identified which pupils need additional support, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Teachers use pupils’ individual learning plans to help them organise learning’ Ofsted 2024
Targeted support is offered through:
• Individual or small group work to provide extra help with basic skills development or specialist programmes
• Advice to teachers from the Learning Support team on the production of resources and best teaching approaches available
• Additional adult support in the classroom to assist individuals or small groups
• Support sessions after school to work on homework tasks and improve study skills
Support for students’ social and emotional learning:
• Transition group provision for students requiring extra support to make the move to secondary education
• Individual and small group teaching with a teacher where appropriate
• Seeking advice and support from external agencies where necessary
• A range of support strategies including ELSA and Dog Therapy
Well-being
Young people have the support of an experienced and dynamic pastoral team, who lead our in-school support for students to achieve and maintain great attendance, behaviour and learning attitudes.
In addition, our Well-being Hub provides a wide range of emotional and wellbeing support through both our own specialist staff and a variety of other agencies. General advice and more targeted help when young people may be feeling more vulnerable are all designed to support and safely challenge young people to grow in confidence and self-awareness. We want them to feel secure and well supported and ultimately to develop their own Personal Agency; learning to take greater control of their own thoughts, feelings and emotions.
Support
Drop in service
• Small group support at break and lunch
• ELSA
• Well-being check-ins and guidance to more in-depth support
• Counselling
• Support from, or referral to, external agencies accessed in school
• Art Therapy
• Dog Therapy
• Big room lunch club supervised games and activities
Rights and Responsibilities
At Hounsdown we encourage students to balance their rights as individuals with their responsibilities as citizens and make a difference in school and in their wider community.
Our expectations for good behaviour are clearly described in our Behaviour for Learning Policy, which is on the school website and in the students’ log books. Young people need to learn to make good, responsible choices through a clear school structure, boundaries and routines. Our values are described through the ‘6Ps’ and this helps us to teach good behaviour such that students are Polite and Patient so they can be Proud of their choices. They also are taught to be Prompt and Prepared so they can be Productive in all that they do in school. Kindness and tolerance are also taught as core strands of school values allowing us to work successfully together as a community.
Hounsdown’s House System
Hounsdown School is organised into four houses. Each student is placed in a house when they join the school and are encouraged to take part in a wide range of inter-house activities.
The House System is designed to encourage students to mix in wider age and friendship groups as well as promoting friendly competition.
The House System at Hounsdown School helps to reflect the ethos of the school by fostering a sense of community developing an awareness of each other and a sense of being part of a team.
Each year different house events run which have included:
• Hounsdown’s Got Talent
• The Oscars
• Swimming Gala
• Inter-sport competitions
• End of term celebration events
• Annual Sports Day
• Subject led events such as quizzes
• Prefect led Charity Week
‘The school has a calm and welcoming atmosphere and relationships between staff and pupils are strong’ Ofsted 2024
Hounsdown School
Pastoral Care & Student Welfare
We are absolutely committed to the principles of Every Child Matters and the school gives high priority to ensuring that students feel:
Valued - Supported - Safe
Relationships among students themselves and between students and teachers are excellent and a hallmark of the positive and supportive ethos within the school.
On entering the school in Year 7 students are placed in a tutor group of approximately 30 students, depending on the size of the year group. They will stay together as a tutor group throughout their time in the school, retaining the same tutor where possible, in order to benefit from continuity of support.
We place great emphasis on the role of the tutor who is responsible for the day-to-day care and organisation of the individuals within their tutor group. In addition, tutors support students in reviewing their academic progress and their personal and social development. The tutor’s work is supported by the Year Leader and the Senior Leadership Team. Weekly assemblies reinforce the sense of school as a community and help individuals feel that they belong and are part of this community. Assemblies also provide opportunities for moral teaching and the celebration of students’ successes.
Healthy, Active and Responsible
At Hounsdown we aim to educate all students to become active, healthy and responsible citizens of the future. As part of our Personal, Social Health and Citizenship Education Programme students undertake a variety of activities, themed days and lessons to maximise their individual decision making skills and prepare them, within a moral framework, to become good citizens. Experts support our delivery on the following themes:
• Sexual Relationship Education (SRE)
• Substance abuse
• Risk management (knife crime/staying safe online/personal safety)
• Disability awareness and equality
• Mental health and wellbeing
‘Pupils’ character and awareness of the world around them are developed very well in subject lessons and in planned personal, social, health and citizenship education lessons’ Ofsted 2024
Prefects – Student Leadership – Student Voice
In order to encourage our students to feel fully involved in their school and to share in decision making we invite students to be a part of student leadership groups. We are committed to providing opportunities for student voice and facilitating opportunities for our students to develop their leadership skills and behaviours. These opportunities include:
• Giving feedback to subjects and the school as part of focus groups for school improvement
• Participating in Enterprise competitions and events e.g. Charity Week
• Standing as a representative for Hampshire’s Youth Parliament
• Being school tour guides and ambassadors for events
Our senior students also have the opportunity to apply to become a School Prefect in Year 11. These students act as role models for younger students and participate in our Junior Form Prefect Programme, along with many other responsibilities, which support our Lower School students with their transition.
Each year we appoint Head Prefects and Deputies as well as a Senior Prefect Team which are high profile leadership roles from within the student body.
Hounsdown School
Life Beyond the Classroom – Extra Curricular Enrichment Opportunities
We believe that a school should develop the whole child, giving them confidence and self-reliance both emotionally and physically. Hounsdown School provides an outstanding and impressive range of enrichment opportunities.
Extra-Curricular Activities have included:
• Film Club - Debating Club - Song Writing Club
• Basketball - Football
• Maths Club
• Art Enrichment
• Eco Club
• Science Club – Fair Trade
• KS4 revision and support sessions after school and in the holidays
• Netball, Rugby, Football, Dance, Rounders, Cricket, Tennis, Athletics
• Art Clubs for all KS3 & KS4
• Drama / Production Clubs
• Year 7 Maths day trip to Marwell
• Year 7 History day trip to Porchester Castle
• History KS4 trip to Berlin
• Geography field studies day trips and residentials
• English and Drama theatre visits have included trips to “Woman in Black” and other West End musicals such as “Mamma Mia”, “Oliver” and “War Horse”
• Poland for KS4 students
• Ypres battlefield trip for KS4 students
• Iceland trip for KS4 students
• Skiing
• Duke of Edinburgh
• Science Week
• Literacy Festival Fortnight
• Business Enterprise activities and challenges (school, area and national)
• Music Instrumental lessons
• Dance Festival and KS4 Dance showcase
• Annual School production & KS4 Drama showcase
• Sports Day & Sports House Competitions
• Team fixtures home and away & New Forest Sports leagues
• Art Trips including trips to the Tate Modern and British Stokes Croft Gallery
As an Eco-School, the environment and learning about sustainable education are at the centre of so many of the projects we do.
We are proud to be a nationally accredited Green Flag School.
Hounsdown School
Hounsdown School Association – HSA
A very active and well supported group of parents and carers support the school community with fundraising and activities that bring the school community closer.
Over the past few years they have helped the school directly by fundraising for:
• iPads
• 3D printer for Technology
• Guest authors for literacy festival
• Extra seating and landscaped areas around school
• Boxing equipment for the PE Department
• Magician for rewards events
• Netball kit
• Vouchers for Awards Evenings
The HSA are also an important group of parents and carers who we consult on school improvement priorities.
Keeping in Contact – Communication with Parents and Carers
Open communication between school, parents and carers is a key part of students’ success.
The website, text and e-mail alerts, newsletters, consultation evenings, curriculum and pastoral information evenings, drop in meetings with members of the Senior Leadership Team are all designed to keep those at home updated with school life.
The student logbook and website also explain how parents and carers at home should get in contact with us if there is a problem or a concern.
We also hold parenting support and advice workshops throughout the year to provide parents / carers with useful tips on how teenagers learn, their behaviour and what you as parents / carers can do to support them.
Transition for our new Year 7 Students
In order to support students in their move to Hounsdown, we place great importance on ensuring that the transition to our school is smooth and successful.
We have very close links with our main link primary and junior schools, planning a series of visits and meetings with them prior to Year 7 students starting with us. Early in the Autumn term, parents of Year 7 students get an early opportunity to meet their son or daughter’s tutor. To ease students’ arrival, the following takes place:
• Year 6 students participation in a series of induction days at Hounsdown
• Linked ‘Junior Form’ Prefects, who attend Year 7 tutor groups to
• provide support
• A ‘Big Room’ experience at lunchtime, which offers opportunities to undertake supervised games
The school also offers a nurture room and group those students who particularly find the transition to a large secondary school difficult.
Trustees
The school is supported by a highly committed and effective Board of Trustees. Many of our trustees are parents. Several of also support and offer training to other schools and their trustees.
Our Trustees play a vital role in holding the school leadership team to account and also provide additional expertise and skills from their work backgrounds. They meet four times a year as a full trustee body, three sub committees meet three times a year respectively.
Admissions
Hounsdown is a popular and over-subscribed school. Our Admissions Policy is consistent with the Admissions Policy of Hampshire County Council. A copy of the Admissions Policy can be found on the school’s website.
Any parent / carer wishing to gain a place, during the academic year, at the school for their child should contact the Headteacher’s PA, Mrs Topping, who oversees school admissions.
Parents / Carers are able to visit the school prior to an application being made and have a tour of the school. Parents / Carers can also request to see a member of the Senior Leadership Team, to discuss an admission to the school. During the autumn term, members of the school’s Senior Leadership Team along with prefects visit out link junior / primary schools to meet prospective students. The school holds both an annual open evening towards the end of September and annual open mornings in early October for parents to see the school at ‘work’.
‘Staff feel well lead and managed and say that Hounsdown is a delightful place in which to work’ Ofsted 2024
Hounsdown Art & Photography
Hounsdown School - A Science College
Headteacher: Mr D Veal, BSc (Hons), M.A.Ed.
Jacobs Gutter Lane Totton Southampton SO40 9FT
023 8086 2981 023 8066 3160
admin@hounsdown.hants.sch.uk www.hounsdown.hants.sch.uk