Bennett Memorial School is delighted to announce that we have been designated as a ‘World Class School’ joining only 60 other schools in the country to have achieved this prestigious status, and the only school in Kent. 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, Headteacher Mr Sparke and Deputy Head Dr Brookes accompanied by students Charles Carr, Adam Fleming, Tamina Hussain, Francesco Montoro, Harriet Taylor and Lauren White will attend an awards ceremony on Thursday night at Churchill College, Cambridge to accept coveted the award.

The World Class Schools quality mark is unique in that it measures and assesses the students in a school across a broad range of criteria. The first stage comprises a detailed scrutiny of examination outcomes across the school and achievement must be in the very top tier for the school to be able to progress to the next stage. For the next phase of assessment, supported by Assistant Headteacher, Mr Stoodley, students from across the school put together a detailed portfolio of written evidence of the school’s performance against the exacting standards of the accreditation, as well as producing a video which can be viewed below. Three students then attended an assessment day at a secondary school in Leeds at which they had to carry out a social responsibility project, collaborating with students from the other applicant schools, watched by assessors. Paying tribute to the work that the students completed, Mr Stoodley said “the students who represented the school at the assessment day really took the lead in their project, which was to redesign a school library. Before this, in the evidence gathering phase, it was superb to see the way in which all of our students at Bennett helped play a part in generating the evidence that Bennett truly matches the ‘world class’ standards. All the evidence in this phase related to a single week in the life of the school in July when we managed to pack in transition days for both our new year 7 students and for our Sixth Form, a whole school 5km run, full cast rehearsals for the musical Oklahoma, a school Sports Day and all the normal run of high quality lessons.” Mr Sparke commented: “at Bennett we are committed to a vision that our students must be enabled to live their lives in the fullest way possible, the education that they receive at Bennett should be better and fuller than the experience anywhere else. This sought after World Class School award gives us further evidence that we are realising this vision.”

We offer our congratulations to all the students who were involved, whether that is because they are at the heart of the evidence, or because they played a role in collating it and representing the school; as well as the students who attended the awards ceremony, former students Zachariah King and Ella Ridley also deserve particular credit for their leadership.