Great Baddow High School is a secondary school in Chelmsford

Chelmsford

Chelmsford is the county town of Essex, England and the principal settlement of the borough of Chelmsford. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately northeast of Charing Cross, London, and approximately the same distance from the once provincial Roman capital at Colchester...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The ages of pupils range from 11 to 16 years old, and students in sixth form

Sixth form

In the education systems of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and of Commonwealth West Indian countries such as Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Jamaica and Malta, the sixth form is the final two years of secondary education, where students, usually sixteen to eighteen years of age,...

 ages from 16 onwards. In September 2002, the school was awarded specialist Sports College

Sports College

Sports Colleges were introduced in 1997 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in the United Kingdom. The system enables secondary schools to specialise in certain fields, in this case, PE, sports and dance. Schools that successfully apply to the Specialist Schools Trust and become Sports...

 status, where children benefit from a wide range of sports. Thus, the school has just recently paid out a lot of money on a new physical education

Physical education

Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....

 department, which was needed, because the old department was outdated, needing new facilities for the growing number of students.

Facilities

As a Sports College, Great Baddow High School offers a range of varying sporting facilities.

The school has a heated indoor swimming pool for sports such as swimming

Swimming (sport)

Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

 and water polo

Water polo

Water polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores more goals. Game play involves swimming, treading water , players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a...

. The pool also has its own male and female changing rooms

Changing Rooms

Changing room may refer to:*changeroom, a room or enclosure in a clothing store where customers may try on clothes before purchasing them*Changing Rooms, a BBC television series*The Changing Room, a stage play by David Storey...

 with cubicle

Cubicle

Тhe cubicle, cubicle desk, office cubicle or cubicle workstation is a partially enclosed workspace, separated from neighboring workspaces by partitions that are usually tall...

s. The school also has three large playing fields for sports such as rugby

Rugby football

Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...

, cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 and soccer

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

.

There is an indoor gymnasium

Gym

The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...

 which can be used for trampolining

Trampolining

Trampolining is a competitive Olympic sport in which gymnasts perform acrobatics while bouncing on a trampoline. These can include simple jumps in the pike, tuck or straddle position to more complex combinations of forward or backward somersaults and twists....

, and also has equipment such as climbing ropes and wall bars

Wall bars

Gymnastics wall bars or gymnastics ladder, was invented at the beginning of the 19th century by the Swedish teacher Pehr Henrik Ling, which suffering from arthritis, realized the therapeutic potential of wall bars exercises....

. They also have a large indoor sports hall, which is primarily used for the school's basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 teams.

Houses

When entering the school, the students are divided into one of four houses. The purpose of these are for sporting competitions, such as sports day

Sports day

Sports days, sometimes referred to as Field Day, are events staged by many schools and offices in which people take part in competitive sporting activities, often with the aim of winning trophies or prizes...

 and social competitive activities such as quizzes

Quiz

A quiz is a form of game or mind sport in which the players attempt to answer questions correctly. In some countries, a quiz is also a brief assessment used in education and similar fields to measure growth in knowledge, abilities, and/or skills.Quizzes are usually scored in points and many...

.

Each of the houses have their specific colours, which can be used for teams in inter-house sports competitions such as a tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

tournament. The houses and their colours can be seen below:

• North - Blue
• South - Yellow
• East - Red
• West - Green

Throughout the year, students will gain awards such as bronze, silver (10 bronze awards) and gold awards (5 silver awards) for years seven to nine, and then credits in years 10 and 11. The person with the most awards receives a prize at the end of the year.