West Heath School is an independent school in Sevenoaks, Kent. It caters for children for whom mainstream schooling has become insufficient, for varying reasons. The school's motto is "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 of parkland on lease from Mohamed Al-Fayed, who contributed almost £3 million towards the school. The building formerly housed West Heath Girls' School, a girls' school with around 100 boarding pupils, established in 1865 and closed in 1997.
History and grounds
In the 1990s West Heath Girls' School had financial difficulties due to falling numbers of pupils, and was placed into receivership in 1997. 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. In a statement, he said: The school was founded in its current form, as The New School at West Heath, 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 ; 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. The entertainer and singer Madonna, who visited the school in 2010, has funded the educational progression through it of one pupil. The school was renamed as West Heath School in September 2015.
Management
Founding patron: Mohamed Al-Fayed The school is governed by a board of 10 Trustees School management:
Principal: Jim Nunns
Deputy Principal: Becky Heaton
Head of Education : Nick Taylor
Head of Boarding:
Head of Post-16 : Paul Conforth
General information
Policy, syllabuses, schemes of work and National Curriculum documents can be made available on request to the Head of Education.
Criteria for pupils: 11 to 19 years old, female or male.
Costs – £15,790 p/a for day pupils, £42,972 p/a for residential pupils.
Class size – 10 maximum.
Funding – The school does not have state school status; however it is indirectly funded through the Local Education Authorities 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.
% 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.
Fund a Child's Education (FaCE)
The New School has set up a fundraising drive, FaCE to enable it to help children in need of the school to move from its very large waiting list of potential pupils.
