In the Classroom: Sir William Romney’s School in Tetbury

The first thing you experience walking into the school is the sense of community.

Arriving just after break time for my first In the Classroom visit since the schools started back, I was immediately struck by the welcome I received by both staff and pupils.

Starting my tour of the school, every pupil was helpful, polite and friendly, held doors open for me and explained with interest what they were learning about.

Every single student I spoke to said the same thing – that this was a great school to be at.

Being school photo day, the halls were filled with lines of smartly dressed pupils, and making our way upstairs, the first class I stepped in on was year 11 Geography.

The students were going over their coursework, which had involved collecting data in Weston-super-Mare.

Unlike your usual trip to the seaside however, they had been conducting research into whether improved infrastructure and tourism were rejuvenating the town.

One pupil, George Aplin, 15, described his findings to me, noting the difference between the town centre and promenade areas to places on the outskirts.

He said that while there had been some improvement, there was still much more that needed to be done to equal out the town’s development levels.

Admittedly I was never much of a fan of Geography, but this looked really interesting.

Next I spoke to a year seven pupil Jayden Lewis, 12, who was one of the students to start this September.

Describing his favourite lessons, he said that the small class sizes at the school really helped cohesion and made it easier to make friends.

He told me about his favourite lessons which were Design Tech and IT. In the latter his first few lessons of this year had focused on the topic of online safety.

As a 90s kid this was something we were never really taught, but I can so how it’s absolutely necessary for young children online now.

It was really interesting to see how much the same lessons we were taught had changed over 10 years.

Jayden is one of the lucky pupils heading to Austria in February 2016 on the school’s annual ski trip.

This is one of the many trips available to Sir William Romney pupils, with the most impressive being a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Borneo in 2017 – for which the pupils would have to take part in fundraising.

As well as extra-curricular sports like skiing, Jayden told me, he also enjoyed playing rugby at the school, which was one of the many clubs and activities available during lunchtime and after school.

To name but a few, these include netball, multigym, indoor football, archery, SEN club and graphics freehand and technical drawing.

Moving upstairs I stepped in on the head teacher Mr Steven Mackay’s history lesson.

The year 11 class was studying America in the 1800’s, looking at the differences between East and West, the slave trade and pan-American railroads, just to name a few topics.

The group had just finished watching a short documentary about the obstacles the railroad builders faced in traversing the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Dan Lennox, 15, and Eve Pelta-Lennox, 15, explained to me that the class was preparing for their GCSE coursework in November.

“This group is made up of students predicted everything from Ds to A*s,” said Mr Mackay, surveying the room.

“But no matter what grade they are on now, each one is progressing, all their grades are all improving, it’s great.

“And that’s a trend across the school. In the last couple of years we’ve been seeing a significant progression in grades and we had a fantastic set of GCSE results again in September.

“As a proud comprehensive school, we often match and even beat many of the private schools in the district.”

I asked him what he thought the main thing that he thought made the school great.

His answers, given almost immediately, were similar to things I’d hear constantly from the pupils.

“Two things in particular”, he said; ‘General wellbeing and happiness’ and ‘the amazing relationships between pupils and teachers’.

In my opinion, Sir William Romney’s reputation as a small, caring and inclusive school is a well-deserved one.