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. 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. Every two years we participate in Hertfordshire Open Studios, in which we provide free space for local artists to work and to exhibit over the course of a weekend.

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 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.

We are improving the facilities of the school by building a dedicated Maths and ICT Building, equipped with the state of art technology. This building is due to be finished by 2010.

To support this venture and learn more about it please click here.