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Kinver High School And Sixth Form

kinver high school and sixth form

West Midlands

Welcome to the Kinver High School website my name is Nikki Clifton, proud headteacher of Kinver High School. I joined Kinver High in December 2019 as head and was pleased to find a team and community that had ambitions that match mine, to create a world class environment for our students to learn. During my headship I aim to lean on not only the experience gained from my 25 years in education, first as a teacher of Modern Foreign Languages and secondly as a School Leader for the past decade; but also, being a parent of three teenagers allows me to perfectly understand the challenges that face our students, parents and carers. I know that the relationship between home and school is crucial to the development of our students. At Kinver, we believe that every child really matters and that every child is an individual with an array of talents, perhaps yet to be discovered. It is our belief that every child can be successful and we are committed to ensuring that all students are prepared for their future and are able to go on to lead successful lives. Our goal is simple, we want all students to develop into well-rounded confident, independent, resilient and high achieving outward thinking individuals, who are proud of their school, its values and reputation. We will equip all students with the knowledge, skills, characteristics and learning behaviours to enable them to set aspirational and challenging goals. We always seek to work with pupils, parents and our wider school community to provide a happy, supportive and stimulating environment where all students thrive, feel safe, respected and are recognised. We want our students to be happy, successful young adults who contribute to their communities, seek out opportunities and continue to always aim, to be the best that they can be. Kinver High School and Sixth Form is widely recognised as a friendly and welcoming school community where all are valued. We aim to support and challenge all our students to work hard and have high aspirations for academic success and personal development. The attainment of students at Kinver is consistently above the national average and their ‘behaviour in lessons and at social times is good’ (Ofsted 2018). Our curriculum is broad and balanced and designed to ensure that all students develop the wide range of skills and attributes required to be a successful member of society as well as gaining the best possible recognised qualifications. ‘16 to 19 study programmes are effective. Teaching is strong, and students make good progress.’ Ofsted, 2018 Kinver is a small 11 – 18 secondary school providing for about 600 students. Being relatively small for a secondary school is seen by parents and students as highly beneficial because we know all of our students well, so that we can help them to learn and develop in a close knit environment. Our positive learning environment, promotes, recognises and rewards all student’s achievements and positive contributions to wider school life. Together with our comprehensive student support structure we ensure that all students can access help, guidance and the support to succeed. As a result, our students are the best advertisement the school could have. We are located in the beautiful, rural village setting of Kinver and serve a wide area also comprising the South Staffordshire villages of Stourton, Swindon, Bobbington and Trysull. Over recent years a substantial number of children have travelled in from Dudley and the southern and western parts of Stourbridge including Norton, Wollaston, Wordsley, Cookley in Worcestershire. Our coaches pick up from all of these locations. Kinver is also conveniently located for travel to and from Bridgnorth and Kidderminster. Academic work at all stages at Kinver High is important, but our idea of education goes beyond the classroom. We have an exceptional range of extra-curricular activities, through involvement in sports teams, musical performances and a variety of lunchtime and after-school clubs designed to engage and inspire students to pursue their own interests and develop their talents. There is also a house system to add a positive, competitive edge to many of the team activities that take place. ‘The curriculum is well balanced, and extra-curricular activities make a strong contribution to pupils’ learning’ Ofsted 2018 Our simple message to students is that ‘hard work and high aspirations make you successful’. I hope that you will want to discover more of what Kinver High can offer you or your child and would encourage you to further explore our website to get to know us better. Through the website you will also be able to access a wide range of important and useful information about the school and stay up to date with school life here at Kinver.

Ben England Music

ben england music

Bradley Stoke

Ben England BA (Hons), PGCE, BEM is a music graduate of Bristol University, where he specialised in musical analysis, composing and musical direction. He trained as a conductor with Dr Alan Rump and Dr Adrian Beaumont, before going on to study conducting with Denise Ham of the London Conducting Academy. After graduation, Ben sang with groups as diverse as the New English Orchestra, the Bristol Chamber Choir, Bristol Opera, the Exultate Singers and the Choir of Clifton Cathedral. A bass baritone, he has performed widely as an oratorio and operatic singer, including lead roles in The Cunning Little Vixen and Der Mond (for Bristol Opera), The Magic Flute and the Pirates of Penzance. Ben currently teaches singing to adults and young people across the Bristol area. Ben is a former Musical Director of Bristol Opera, where he led the company in successful performances of Handel’s Samson and Lakmé by Delibes and he has led numerous choirs in and around Bristol for the past 20 years, including the large Bristol Cabot Choir and the Bristol Gilbert and Sullivan Operatic Society and a number of smaller choirs. Having qualified as an Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) of Music through the DfE Fast-Track Teaching programme, Ben worked for South Gloucestershire as a Head of Music and county Music and Music Technology specialist for eight years. In 2011 Ben took up the role of Director of Music at Colston’s Girls’ School, where he ran music across five schools (including four primary schools) from 2011-2016. His work as an educator brought him to the national stage on numerous occasions, as he lectured on music and leadership at conferences for the DfES and the National Association of Head Teachers. Ben has worked extensively with professional composers to champion their music, often commissioning and performing new works. These composers include local musicians Richard Barnard and Eric Wetherell, as well as more recently the eminent John Rutter and conducting a premiere by the renowned composer Patrick Hawes. Since leaving teaching, Ben has worked on a freelance basis for Bristol Plays Music, the music education hub for the City of Bristol, based at the Bristol Beacon (formerly Colston Hall). In this role he has organised and coordinated major performances at the Colston Hall, Bristol Cathedral and further afield. He managed the Bristol Youth Choir from 2016-2017 and coordinated the live BBC Radio/TV music broadcast from Southmead Hospital on BBC Music Day 2017. He has written award-winning education materials and been nominated for three national Music Teacher awards for his work on projects such as the Bristol/Monteverdi 450 choral workshops and university seminar and the Bristol Minute of Listening. He is the author of the curriculum materials for the planned international 2021 Berlioz celebrations. During the Coronavirus outbreak of 2020, Ben established HOMECHOIR, a free YouTube channel on which he broadcasts a range of free musical and educational programmes including choir rehearsals, music theory teaching and a Sacred Sing on Sunday mornings. In October of 2020, Ben (as founder of homechoir) was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) by Her Majesty the Queen for services to the community during the COVID-19 outbreak. Following the success of the Quarantine Choir, Ben was appointed Musical Director of the Self-Isolation Choir (founded by inspirational business leader Mark Strachan) which in 2020 has grown to one of the largest choirs in the world. Their inaugural project Messiah at Home was produced with some of the world’s greatest musicians including Laurence Cummings, Carolyn Sampson and Jennifer Johnstone and gained international attention. Messiah at Home was featured on the national BBC Evening News, all the BBC radio stations, NHK (Japan) CBS (USA) and many more – and has become part of the official Wikipedia entry for Messiah. The choir has grown to 12,000 strong and has recorded such amazing works as Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, Mozart’s Requiem and Allegri’s Miserere – working with the world-famous choir Tenebrae and their conductor, Nigel Short. Ben conducted the Self-Isolation Choir in the World Premiere of Still, Still the Night by Patrick Hawes in December 2020, and their version of Hawes’ Quanta Qualia was played on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in March 2021. Ben is much in demand as a choral leader and has taken on the Musical Directorship of the UWE Singers, a large SATB choir based at the University of the West of England. Ben lives in the South-West of the UK with his wife Ana and their children Katie and Bobby.