News - a World Class School which keeps on improving

Friday 10 July 2020

Bennett Memorial School is delighted to announce that we have been reaccredited as a ‘World Class School’. In 2017, Bennett joined just 60 other schools in the country in achieving this prestigious status, and we are now one of just ten schools this year to have received the award for a second time. 

Only schools that can demonstrate that they are operating well beyond the level of Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ are able to be considered, and, following a rigorous assessment process that started earlier this year, Bennett were again awarded the World Class Schools quality mark (WCSQM) on Wednesday evening. In light of the ongoing social distancing measures, WCSQM’s annual Symposium, scheduled to be held at World Class accredited St Marylebone School, took place virtually, hosted by EdTech Demonstrator and World Class Sandringham School in St Albans.

The World Class Schools quality mark is unique in that it measures and assesses students across a broad range of criteria. The first stage comprises a detailed scrutiny of examination outcomes across the school and here achievement must continue to be in the very top tier for the school to be able to progress to the next stage.  For the next phase of reaccreditation, a group of students in year 12, supported by Assistant Headteacher, Mr Stoodley, put together a detailed portfolio of written evidence of the school’s performance against the exacting standards of the reaccreditation, as well as producing a video which was submitted to the WCSQM awards panel. These students presented some of the school’s recent developments to demonstrate how Bennett continues to hit the mark as a World Class School. Amongst other things these included working with Universify Education to enable students from less advantaged backgrounds to experience undergraduate study at the University of Oxford, the Young Enterprise initiative run for students in years 7 to 10, and the work of students using iMacs, Solidworks, DSLR cameras and other state of the art photography and media technology.

Whilst this achievement reflects the hard work and dedication of all of our staff and students, WCS ambassadors Isaac Strand, Amelia Woollett and Tabitha Hall oversaw our application, collected the evidence and worked closely with our WCS partner school, to produce the video. Isaac said, ‘I enjoyed opportunities to find out more of what happens ‘behind the scenes’ to make Bennett the only World Class School in West Kent, as well as the opportunity to learn video editing skills when compiling the evidence we collected.’ The WCS ambassadors were quick to recognise what a fantastic opportunity the school had, with Amelia saying ‘This status for the school is important as it shows we go above and beyond an outstanding level’, and Tabitha stating ‘…our hard work has evidently paid off and it has been a pleasure to represent the school and our outstanding community’.

This reaccreditation means that Bennett will continue to be part of the WCS community for the next 3 years at least, and that our students will continue to access the benefits and opportunities that being part of this network of schools provides.