Alderley Edge School for Girls case studies (4)

Impact of partnership work done in 2023 (ISC annual Census 2024)

• 10 state schools involved
• 201-500 state school pupils involved
• 50 staff hours given

Impact Statement

For the last three years we have organised and hosted the Cheshire Schools Junior Photography competition for local pupils in Years 5. In January 2019 we received over 70 entries for this year’s competition and have invited 20 children from five schools to attend – 2 independent schools and 3 state schools. The 20 winning pupils will be exploring light painting and creative photography techniques at the School.

The day introduces pupils to Photography as subject and both facilities and experiences, which they are traditionally unable to explore in the primary school setting.

Alderley Edge School for Girls hosted ‘Education Matters’ in March 2018 for Gifted & Talented students in Years 9-11. It was a full day event which was led by the internationally acclaimed philosopher, Dr Peter Vardy.

Over 60 Senior Schools, both state and independent, from five local authorities were invited - Cheshire East, Trafford, Manchester, Cheshire West and Stockport to participate in the day of thought-provoking debates and lectures that stretched and challenged all those pupils that attended which included Sandbach School, Abbey Gate College, Stockport School and Manchester Islamic High School for Girls.

We have set up a State School Partnership with St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Heaton Norris Stockport. Pupils in Year 5 joined us during the Summer term (2018) on a 4-week Science and Technology Project. During the initiative, the children participated in a number of fun and educational Science experiments, worked in Senior School Science Laboratories and used the fantastic technology facilities available at our school. They also participated in activities such as programming a drone and learning how to code.

During the project, the children developed the skills to be able to demonstrate the activities that they participated in to the rest of their class and on completion of the project, children were awarded with a certificate from the Royal Society of Biology.

The sessions are at no cost to St Mary’s parents and transport to and from Alderley Edge School for Girls will be provided by the school. The core aim of this partnership is to help support pupil achievement; improve pupil self-esteem; raise pupil aspirations and may in some future instances, improve professional practice. This partnership will be taking place again in 2019 and we have opened this out to another local state primary school – Lacey Green Primary Academy in Wilmslow.

In addition to this, we are launching an ‘Expect the Unexpected Science Roadshow’ where members of our Science Department can run activities within local schools. We have introduced this in response to some schools being unable to get their children to our events so we bring our experience, facilities and skills to their classrooms at no cost.

We hosted a Gifted and Talented workshop for English and Humanities for children in Year 5. The event took place in June 2018 and 24 children from the following state schools joined us – Vernon Primary School, Moss Hey Primary School, Lum Head Primary School and Alderley Edge Community Primary School in addition to pupils from our own Junior School.

In November 2018, we invited and paid for Kiko Matthews to come in and provide an inspirational talk to our pupils. She is the fastest female to row the Atlantic, solo and unsupported. We invited local schools in to attend this talk for free so that they also had the opportunity to hear about her tales. Two local independent schools joined is for this event.