The New School at West Heath

The New School at West Heath

File:A New School on the old Ashgrove Estate and its history - geograph.org.uk - 919317.jpg
Motto	Rebuilding Lives Through Education
Established	1998
Principal, CEO	Christina Wells
Location	Ashgrove Road Sevenoaks Kent TN13 1SR England
Website	westheathschool.com

The New School at West Heath (or simply the New School) is an independent school in Sevenoaks, Kent. It caters for children for whom mainstream schooling has become insufficient, for varying reasons. While many are not mentally or physically disabled, many have been through harsh circumstances and suffer from related things such as emotional trauma, which fits with the school's motto, "Rebuilding Lives Through Education."

The school, founded in its current form as a charitable trust on 14 September 1998 as the Beth Marie Centre, is based in 31 acres (13 ha) of parkland on lease from Mohamed Al-Fayed, who contributed almost £3 million towards the school. The building formerly housed the school where Diana Spencer, later Princess of Wales and her two older sisters, Sarah and Jane, received their childhood education. It was then called West Heath Girls' School and was a very exclusive girls' school with around 100 boarding pupils.

History and grounds

West Heath School

The Reverend Philip Bennet Power and his wife, Emma, undertook the education of their own daughters at their Abbey Wood home, West Heath House. The quality of the girls' education attracted other local families to ask the Powers to teach their children and West Heath School thus opened in 1865.

In 1879 the expanding school moved to 1 Ham Common, in what was then the agricultural community of Ham, Surrey. The house, set in over 10 acres (4.0 ha) of grounds, was the former residence of the Duc de Chartres.

In 1890 Misses Sarah, Maria and Anna Buckland and Miss Jane Percival who owned a similar school in Reading joined forces with the ageing Mrs Power at Ham Common and they ran the school until its purchase in 1900 by Misses Emma Lawrence and Margaret Skeat. Miss Elliott joined the staff in 1928 and was appointed Principal the following year.

The development of nearby shops and housing prompted a second move, Ham having become "too suburbanised for a high class girls' school". In 1932 the school moved to its present site, the 18th century Ashgrove House, near Sevenoaks, and the former home of the Elliot family. The larger premises allowed the school to grow from its previous capacity at Ham of about seventy boarders, to over one hundred by the end of the Second World War.

In addition to the Spencer sisters, Issy Van Randwyck and Tilda Swinton were educated there.

In the 1990s the school had financial difficulties due to falling numbers of pupils, and was placed into receivership in 1997.

The New School at West Heath

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund considered buying the school, but decided against it, and Mohamed Al Fayed stepped in to buy West Heath for £2,300,000 on 20 May 1998 as new premises for the Beth Marie Centre. He later pledged to contribute a further £550,000 towards equipping the school.

"I am surprised that the Princess Diana memorial fund, with all its millions in the bank, did not show a greater interest in this project," Al Fayed said in a statement. "I believe it to be a far more fitting tribute to her work than putting her name on tasteless souvenirs."

The school was founded in its current form, with Valerie May as Principal, on 14 September 1998. At the start it had around 30 pupils. Boarding began in the year 2000, and there are six boarding houses, each named after one of the trustees (see Management, below); Tarrant, Sissons, Astor, Ruth, Hunniford and Esther.

An additional, more modern, teaching block was built to increase the classroom capacity and overall space for the school.

Management

Founding patron: Mohamed Al-Fayed

The school is governed by a board of nine Trustees/Patrons (who are the tenants of the Al Fayed Charitable Foundation). As of 2013 they were:

• Chairman: Peter Sissons
  • Elizabeth Mackintosh, Baroness Mackintosh of Hever
  • John Jacob Astor, 3rd Baron Astor of Hever
  • Gloria Hunniford
  • Sue Lee-Kemp
  • Esther Rantzen
  • Ruth Rudge
  • Wayne Sleep
  • Chris Tarrant

School management:

• Principal: Christina Wells(B.A. Hons.)
• Deputy Principal: Jim Nunns
• Head of Education (school): Chris Moffet
• Head of Boarding: Dan Giannini
• Head of Post-16 (school support at colleges): Nick Taylor

General information

Policy, syllabuses, schemes of work and National Curriculum documents can be made available on request to the Head of Education.

• Criteria of pupils - 11 to 19 years old, female or male.

Disabilities which pupils may have include: acute stress disorder, addiction, affective spectrum, agoraphobia, anorexia nervosa, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD/ADD), Asperger syndrome, autism spectrum/high functioning autism, avoidant personality disorder, bipolar disorder, bulimia nervosa, conduct disorder, developmental delay, clinical depression, dyslexia, developmental coordination disorder, epilepsy, exhibitionism, genetic disorders, hysteria, nervous breakdown, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), oppositional defiant disorder, (ODD), general anxiety disorder (GAD), impulse control disorder (kleptomania, intermittent explosive disorder, pyromania, pathological gambling, trichotillomania), emotional or behavioural difficulties, pathological demand avoidance (PDA), panic attacks, pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), seasonal affective disorder (SAD), self-harm (SH), separation anxiety disorder/school refusal, selective mutism, semantic pragmatic disorder, social anxiety (social phobia), Tourette syndrome and other various mental health problems.

Many of the disadvantaged pupils have not had the opportunity to get a formal Statement of Special Needs (SSEN) for various reasons.

• Costs - £15,790 p/a (per annum) for day pupils, £42,972 p/a for residential (boarding) pupils.
• Class size - 10 maximum.
• Funding - The school does not have state school status; however it is indirectly funded through the Local Education Authorities (LEAs) of individual pupils, Social Services, Health authorities, bursary or self-funded. Each pupil has an annual review each year to determine if their needs are being met and what changes if any need to be made in their education. Recently the school had to cut back hard on funding due to a decrease in charity donations. Al-Fayed ceased funding the school.

It received some money from Children in Need in 2004, and teachers and pupils also partook in fund-raising activities for Children in Need as a whole, for example sponsored silences, head shaves, makeup-for-the-day and so on.

• Entry - Entering the school requires a Local Education Authority procedure or Social Services referral, as the school has the status as a Special School.
• Number of pupils - 101

Statistics

2005

GCSE grades:

• Unpublished

2004

GCSE grades:

• Number of pupils aged 15: 20
• Pupils achieving 5 or more GCSE passes (A*-C): 0%
• Pupils failing to achieve at least one entry level qualification: 20%
• Average total GCSE point score per 15-year-old: 121.3 (for comparison, the nearest non-Special Educational Needs school, Sevenoaks School: 498.2)

2003

GCSE grades:

• Number of pupils: 31
• Pupils aged 16 achieving 5 or more GCSE grades A*-G: 89% (unpublished which of this is passes, e.g. A*-C)
• Average total point score per 16-year-old: 23.8 (for comparison, the nearest non-SEN school, Sevenoaks School average: 66.8)
• Pupils with Special Educational Needs: 100%

2002

Key Stage 3 tests (not GCSE):

•  % pupils achieving level 5 or above in English test: 0%
•  % pupils achieving level 5 or above in Maths test: 22%
•  % pupils achieving level 5 or above in Science test: 0%
•  % 15-year-olds achieving 5 or more grades A*-C: 4%
  • 1998-2002 decrease in % of 15-year-olds getting 5 or more A*-C: 17%
•  % 15-year-olds achieving 5 or more grades D-G: 32%
•  % 15-year-olds failing to achieve at least 5 G grades: 64%

2000

GCSE grades:

• Pupils achieving 5 or more GCSE grades A*-C: 33%
• Pupils failing to achieve at least 5 GCSE passes: 67%
• Pupils failing to achieve any GCSE passes: 17%
• Pupils with Special Educational Needs: 100%
• Pupils with SEN with statements: 61.9%
• Pupils with SEN without statements: 38.1%
• Number of pupils: 42

1999

GCSE grades:

• Pupils achieving 5 or more GCSE grades A*-C: 21%
• Pupils failing to achieve at least 5 GCSE passes: 79%
• Pupils failing to achieve any GCSE passes: 11%

Post 16

As well as teaching pupils from Years 7 to 11, the school operates a section allowing pupils to get "support" from the school while going to college; the school itself does not have staff to teach subjects at A-level. Many continue boarding at the school while going to college elsewhere. As many of the pupils live far away, once they start a college course while staying with the post-16 section of the school, it is very hard for them to move to another college if they change their mind and wish to stop boarding at the school.Often pupils have to choose between abandoning their college course and the qualification they have worked for a year on, or moving to another college and leaving the school.Most pupils cannot afford their own transport, and Local Education Authorities (LEAs) work on a yearly basis and will not help pay for transport if a pupil wishes to leave the school.

Fund a Child's Education (FaCE)

The New School has set up a fundraising drive, FaCE (Fund a Child's Education) to enable it to help children in need of the school to move from its very large waiting list of potential pupils.

External links

• The New School at West Heath, Ofsted social care inspection reports
• The New School at West Heath, Ofsted independent school inspection reports
• The New School at West Heath on Independent Schools of the British Isles
• The New School at West Heath website
• Article mentioning the school on BBC News Online, September 2003
• Information about the school previously on Al-Fayed's website (last available archived version, 17 May 2006)
• West Heath Tennis Centre, which takes place on the schools facilities when not in use for additional funding.
• An account of Princess Diana's time at West Heath (Girls' School)
• Another account, from Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words