Jo Richardson Community School

[EduCativ]

At JRCS we are committed to providing a safe, supportive and happy learning environment for our students. We will support all students in the pursuit of and progress towards their chosen goals by providing the highest standard of teaching and pastoral support.
Our motto “Success for All” underpins everything that we do at the school and puts the students’ achievements at the center of our vision. We commit to the highest academic standards combined with a wide range of curricular and extra-curricular activities aimed at enhancing the opportunities offered to all our students.
If you live in Barking and Dagenham and you would like a school place for your child (aged between 4 and 16), the Admissions Team within the Borough of Barking and Dagenham will need to process your application.
Life at the JRCS is about more than just benefiting from well-taught lessons. We are committed to providing a wide range of opportunities for our students outside lessons. We also actively encourage students to get involved in developing the out-of-school hours learning program by getting them involved in bidding for the out-of-school activities that they want to do. The next bidding round takes place in the summer term. During the third week in September, we hold a clubs fair at lunchtime in Boothroyd Hall which gives students and teachers the chance to meet and talk about what activities are available out of school hours throughout the school year. Students are encouraged to run stalls about each club alongside teachers. This is a great opportunity for year 7 students and students new to the school to find out more about the wealth of extra-curricular activities available at JRCS.
We also offer an extensive program for enterprise education and careers education guidance. We have an extensive range of extracurricular clubs and opportunities for students outside the taught curriculum including five days where we collapse our timetable to enable students to participate in exciting enrichment opportunities both in school, trips into London, and abroad.
Our ‘Power of Words’ activity opens up a range of opportunities for all students to develop their literacy skills. From the ablest to those who join us needing extra support with their literacy, we believe that every student has the right to leave JRCS equipped with the necessary literacy skills to thrive, both in their academic careers and in life beyond secondary school. School support is organized by the Assistant Headteacher/Induction Coordinator who devises a program of induction. This begins in the Summer Term when the NQT induction fortnight is held. We try to ensure that all NQTs receive an intensive program, including meeting key staff and receiving information important for the start of the term such as registration duties, etc. However, the majority of this time is spent within the structure of the individual departments. The Assistant Headteacher/Induction Coordinator will organize the termly reporting of the NQTs’ progress to the Approving Body. The Assistant Headteacher/Induction coordinator will also process the final report assessing the completion of the induction period.
Major developments have taken place at JRCS over the past three years in terms of teaching and learning. We are proud that we make decisions and policies based on research and evidence. We are willing to innovate and try new ideas.
Researching best practices in teaching and learning we saw that the most successful schools use in-house publications to promote and share best practices. As we strive to become a school recognized for the innovative and rigorous approach we take to teaching and learning our staff jumped at the chance to become involved in our teaching and learning magazine, “Learning to Fly”.
Newly Qualified Teachers must be fully supported during their first year of teaching. The School provides an induction program for all NQTs in conjunction with Heads of the Department and the Senior Leadership Team.
Our school is involved in a variety of different international projects. Throughout the years JRCS has been involved in the Comenius Project on sustainability with partner schools in Spain, Germany, Denmark, and Belgium. This year we will be part of an exciting new project called Erasmus+ and we will be discussing the topic of migration with various partner schools in Europe. This is a great opportunity for our students to understand many of the issues going on around us and any solutions we can bring. We are involved in “work the world” where we send some year 10 students to another country for their work experience in June. We will be part of an exciting project called “Rivers of the world” in September where we are part of a project with other schools around the world which studies the importance of the main river of our country through art. The list of different exciting new projects keeps on extending! We constantly raise awareness in pupils on important international events such as “human rights day”.

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