Principal’s welcome
Welcome to Haberdasher’s Askes’ Knights Academy, an all through 3-18 Academy serving the local communities of Bromley and Catford in the London Borough of Lewisham.
Knights Academy is a vibrant, diverse school community with a relentless focus on high expectations and aspirations. We provide a, happy and nurturing environment, so that as well as maturing into well-rounded, healthy young people, our pupils develop a passion for learning. We strive for excellence in in all that we do, whether that is in standards of academic attainment, uniform, or behaviour.
We enable our pupils to achieve success by focusing on the individual and by providing an ‘outstanding’ curriculum, including an elite science and elite business programme at post 16. Through the excellent provision offered through our sport specialism and the extensive extra-curricular activities, our pupils develop confidence and self-esteem.
We are a school that is built on an ethos of tradition and innovation, respect and responsibility, collaboration and inclusion. It is these moral values that we instil in our pupils which enables them to contribute to our school community and the communities in which they live.
It will be my privilege to work with you and your child along this exciting journey of their school career, to enable them to achieve their very best.
Our aim is to provide all Knights’ students with an innovative curriculum that provides them with the keys to unlock their potential and their futures. Our students must be enabled to make the choices that enhance their life chances. We want university to be an option and an aspiration for all our students.
We are introducing five new A Level courses to the Knights’ curriculum in 2012 – French, Art, Geography, Physical Education and Business Studies, to augment our already large range. In addition we run two Elite Post 16 programmes in Science and Business Studies to cater for top achieving students from within the Federation and from other local schools.
Knights Temple Grove, our primary phase, is now integrated with the secondary phase and great progress is being made to improve outcomes for all of our primary children. We will exceed the floor standard of 60% in KS 2 SATs exams in 2012. The success of the school has been achieved through the hard work and rigour of Ms Sam Linton, the new Head of Primary Phase, and her team. The levels of progress made by our children in a short space of time have been nothing short of miraculous.
We have introduced a new primary curriculum model; literacy and numeracy development programmes; booster classes; extra-curricular enrichment activities, ranging from Italian to ICT; dance to drama; choirs to cricket!
The Ethos of the School
Our success is embodied in our strong ethos of Mutual Respect, Responsibility and Equality of opportunity for all. We aim to Promote Excellence. We value tradition and Knights' students are full members of the Haberdashers' family of schools. As well as this, we work tirelessly to meet the needs and expectations of our students through constant innovation.
Our Sports Specialism plays a vital role in developing the self-esteem of the school and the students, and gives the academy a sense of its own worth. We play a pivotal role in the sports life of the borough, as a community hub in the Lewisham Sports Partnership. Our students have had great success on local, national and international sporting stages. This has allowed Knights to develop a confident and aspirational culture for all our students. Included, in this has been the phenomenal success of our dance programme which has seen our very talented dancers, both girls and boys, performing on national and international stages.
From primary levels onwards there are leadership opportunities, enhancing both the school community, and cohesion between peer groups. We value our place within our local community, and our staff and students work hard to have a positive impact upon it. We have introduced a strong student voice programme; prefects in Year 11 and Year 13; learning mentors in Year 12. Students are taking ownership of their school and looking to make it the very best it can be.
Our most important partners are our parents. We hold parents evenings, consultations and information days and have a popular and effective PTA. We keep in close contact with our parents through regular letters and invitations to events at the Academy.
We are never complacent about our achievements – there is always scope for improvement and we want to be an outstanding school – we invite all of our stakeholders (governors, parents, staff, pupils, community) and prospective staff to join us on the journey to excellence!
Every day in my role as Principal, my staff and students give me occasions to feel immensely proud of their achievements. I am happy to lead Knights Academy on its journey to outstanding and beyond. This will be a great school, preparing young people from our local community, through a truly comprehensive education, to be citizens of the 21st century. The Knights’ Leadership Team and all the staff of the academy look forward to working with students and parents to achieve great things!
Please have a good look around our site and if you require any further information please contact the Academy reception on 020 7652 9500 Option 9.
Dr Tesca Bennett
Principal of Knights Academy