St Benedict's Catholic College is a secondary school in Colchester

Colchester

Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...

, 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...

. The headteacher of the school is Mr. P Johnson. The school accepts students aged eleven to sixteen. the students wear a uniform all five days of the week. The uniform consists of a white blouse or shirt, black trousers or a grey skirt, a royal blue tie with gold double bar stripes and a black blazer with the school badge sown on the top left outer pocket. The school day consists of five lessons or "periods" with a twenty minute break between the second and third lesson and an hour lunch break between the third and fourth.

Subjects

The range of subjects taught at St Benedict's is broad. There is the traditional English, Mathematics and Science (split into Physics, Chemistry and Biology at the beginning of Year 9). St Benedict's is known as a Business and Languages College, meaning that the students are taught business skills from Year 9 upwards and languages from Year 7 upwards with the opportunity to learn a second language from the beginning of Year 9. The main languages taught are French and German, the Year 9 option is Spanish, and there is an after-school club, run by one of the English Department teachers, which teaches Latin. As the school is a Catholic College, religious education is included in the timetable. During these lessons, students not only learn more about Christianity, but about other religions too, Judaism for example is part of the Year 8 curriculum. History and Geography are also included as well as PSHE lessons. During Year 7, there is the chance to achieve Bully Free Form for the tutor groups which is achieved through posters, discussions and role plays. IT (Information Technology) is also taught with four computer suites and two computers available in the Library. PE (Physical Education) is taught and there are many lunchtime and after school sports clubs. Technology is taught with the classes being Resistant Materials, systems and control, Food and Textiles.

2011 protest

On 27 January 2011, around 250 of the 800 students participated in a spontaneous protest on the field and through the school buildings. This occurred due to the head, John O Hara, banning any physical contact of one student with another. This included hugging, kissing and holding hands. The protest started at approximately 1:30 and lasted the rest of the school day. The events included students roaming around the school grounds, several posters and chanting. Within an hour from the start of the protest, classroom doors were locked, so caught students could not rejoin the protest and the students still involved could be noted down from the register. The caught students were forced to attend a two-hour after-school detention the following week and told to write a statement on why they believe the protest took place. Many believe that the protest was the main reason for the resignation of John O Hara.

Rooms

As stated above, there are four computer suites split between the two main buildings. The school library is well stocked with Non Fiction and Fiction books as well as two computers. Students are allowed to remove a maximum of two books at a time. There are six science laboratories with equipment for all experiments. The Technology classrooms are also well equipped. The PE department has had a new block built with updated changing rooms (male and female) and a new gymnasium. There are two gymnasiums, a running track, long jump, two rounders pitches, tennis courts, netball courts,indoor and outdoor basketball courts football pitches and a rugby pitch as well as equipment to do high jump and indoor sports such as basketball, badminton, gymnastics, dance, table tennis.

External links

• St Benedict's Catholic College