Specialist Status
The school holds Specialist Status for Visual Arts, and for Maths and Computing. It aims to combine the artistic/creative and the academic, so that we provide pupils at this school and partner schools, community groups and the wider community with enriched and balanced educational opportunities.
Our vision is to use the wide range of outreach programmes to provide and share resources and expertise, making available new and exciting opportunities for disadvantaged and disabled individuals and groups across the whole community.
Specialist Visual Arts College
We provide courses for the school, partner schools and the wider community. Besides our own teachers running courses, we also employ professional artists, designers and craftspeople to provide teaching within the community and to our pupils.
We have space on site for artists, students and community groups to exhibit and sell their work in the public arena. We also offer free administrative support, assist in the hanging of exhibitions and host private views. Our investment in this area provides Watford with much-needed gallery space in which the public can engage with a variety of art forms as part of a regular programme.
We also employ an Artist in Residence, Sian Fenwick. Besides receiving free studio space to continue her own work, our Artist in Residence assists the Art Teachers in various workshops within the school and the community.
Our Adult Evening Classes are highly popular and often over subscribed. Monday evenings are the Ceramics, Photography, Textiles and Silversmith Jewellery classes. Wednesday evenings are the Painting and Drawing, Life Sculpture and Silversmith Jewellery classes. We also hold a Life Drawing class on Wednesday afternoon for A Level students.
To see further details please go to http://www.wggs-artscollege.ik.org
Specialist Maths / ICT College
In today’s fast-developing world, it is our objective to bring confidence in ICT and numeracy to our students, the wider community and to pupils in partner schools. We aim to encourage greater understanding and use of Maths and ICT, enabling people to be better prepared for life.
We work closely with local primary schools to train staff and support the teaching of Maths and ICT. Our teachers offer their knowledge at in-service training sessions and/or workshops for the partner schools. We have an evening course for parents of girls in Year 7 and 8 that is open to all; this is to help parents understand the Mathematics their children study in Key Stage 3.
We also provide Maths Teachers to run Numeracy and Basic IT classes to The New Hope Trust.
We continue our community work by offering ICT support to the long-term unemployed and to those with learning difficulties. Our Saturday ICT class, run by MENCAP, offers people with learning difficulties a chance to increase their skills.
The Maths and ICT Building was due to open September 2010 but opened ahead of schedule in September 2009. It is equipped with the state of art technology.
To support this venture and learn more about it please click here.
