Specialist Media Arts College Status

Wheatley Park was one of the first schools to be awarded Specialist Status in the Media Arts. We promote excellence in the Arts and encourage all students to be literate in interpreting the vast amountsof information presented to them by the Media that surrounds us.

We have a wide programme of extra curricular Arts events which have ensured we have achieved Arts Mark Gold on three consecutive occasions and encourage our students to participate in regional and national arts events.

This year we are part of the Tree of Light project funded by the Olympic Heritage Trust. This project involves 40 community groups and schools from the south east of England and will celebrate the cultural Olympiad in two spectacular events this Summer.

Our Grade two listed Arts centre and our Modern Eco- friendly Mediaand English centre are homes for the specialist departments. We haveexcellent facilities for film making, photography, screen printing,ceramics, drama performance and technical theatre, music technology (including a ICT suite and a recording studio). Our wonderful school grounds provide inspiration for all our learners and a backdrop to many creative projects. We work with our partner primary schools and with community groups throughout the year. Our programme of concerts, events and exhibitions celebrates the partnerships we have developed over the years that ensure our learners are inspired to produce work of the highest quality standard.

At Wheatley Park we are a creative learning community. This informs the way that we work together and plan for our schools development. Creativity in teaching and learning is celebrated and encouraged through our zones concept. We plan to create exciting learning opportunities for all our learners to experience the highest levels of engagement and challenge in their learning and we celebrate this.

Our Big Learning Days and programme of learning outside of the classroom support this philosophy. Active learning and reflection on learning skills and outcomes are key parts of these days when we invite key partners to come into our school to inspire our students and teachers with new innovative practise.

We look forward to welcoming you to our Arts events and sharing with you the many talents of our students.