St Martin's Garden Primary & Monkton Combe School's weekly partnership
Partners
- Monkton Combe School
- St Martin's Garden Primary
- Academic
- Sport DofE Cadets
- SEND
- School Maintenance
T: +44 (0)1225 721100
Contact email Visit our websiteISC ID: 81297
Mrs Catherine Winchcombe (Head)
Mr Christopher Wheeler (Principal)
Boys - age range:
Day: 2 to 19
Boarding: 7 to 19
Girls - age range:
Day: 2 to 19
Boarding: 7 to 19
645 pupils
St Martin's Garden Primary & Monkton Combe School's weekly partnership
Partners
Partners
Monkton pupils' environment partnership with Winsley
Partners
Partners
Partners
Partners
Beechen Cliff Strategy Day at Montkon Combe School
Partners
Impact of partnership work done in 2024 (ISC annual Census 2025)
Impact Statement
Over the course of 2024, Monkton has been involved in a wide range of partnerships activity, resulting in numerous benefits both for our pupils and the schools that we have partnered with.
At the start of the 2024 academic year, we began a new partnership with St Martin’s Garden Primary, born out of an existing relationship between the two schools, and which we hope will continue beyond this year. Our Year 12 pupils have been visiting St Martin’s weekly to read, take sporting activities, and play games with their pupils, along with helping improve their learning spaces. We have already seen an incredible impact, with Monkton pupils discovering new skills, benefitting from interaction with younger pupils, and understanding the social responsibility they have. St Martin’s pupils have enjoyed building rapport with older pupils and having role models to help raise their aspirations. Feedback from one class teacher demonstrates this: "Even our most reluctant readers are keen to read with them and it has been lovely to see such positive role models in our class."
In the summer term, 55 pupils from 4 local primary schools attended our Wild Shakespeare Day, taking part in English and Drama workshops with Monkton staff and Year 12 pupils. The visiting pupils benefitted from exploring Shakespeare in a new way as well as interacting with older pupils, their teachers described it as providing ‘amazing experiences’.
Our pupils have helped develop the outdoor learning spaces at both Winsley Primary and St Martin’s Garden, for the benefit of their whole school communities. The impact of this is giving pupils and teachers more opportunity to take education outdoors, which has known benefits for learning and wellbeing.
Monkton have been involved in a number of shared partnerships with different schools across Bath, including Bath Schools Philosothon, Bath Student Parliament and Bath Schools’ Voices - each providing opportunities to challenge pupils, collaborate with new people and raise aspirations of all involved. We have also competed in a number of sporting fixtures, both competitive and friendly with local state and independent schools, giving all pupils the opportunity to test themselves and improve their skills.
Local primary schools including Combe Down, Freshford and Rode have used Monkton’s facilities throughout the year, benefitting their pupils through providing sport and performance spaces they would not otherwise be able to access.
Monkton teachers have also been involved in knowledge sharing and training with their peers in other schools across Bath. Our SENCo has met with the SENCo at Oldfield Secondary on multiple occasions to assist with access arrangements and information sharing. He also chaired the first partnerships meeting for local secondary SENCos, benefiting all through knowledge sharing, which in turn positively impacts each school community. We have also delivered our Anatomy of Coaching course for teaching staff and leaders of the Palladian Academy Trust, providing them with the skills to have positive communications with their pupils.
Our pupils have also been involved in a range of community projects throughout the year, benefitting a variety of groups in our local community. As part of an ongoing partnership with the Genesis Trust, Monkton pupils helped them at the annual Bath Half Marathon, as well as undertaking fundraising activities such as a sponsored swim and abseil. The funds raised go directly to supporting vulnerable people across Bath. Both Prep and Senior pupils have supported Holy Trinity Combe Down and St Andrew’s Community Church with their events, serving elderly members of the community to the benefit of both groups through interaction. Our pupils have also held fundraising events for numerous charities, supporting a range of causes in the UK and abroad.
We are looking at ways to develop and expand our partnerships work for the coming year, to increase the impact both on our pupils and those we partner with.
Scholarships
We award scholarships in recognition of the unique contribution that those who combine passion and talent can make to school life. We want our scholars to raise aspirations, model perseverance, and demonstrate the power of embracing failure.
In turn, we offer scholars a pathway on one of our excellence programmes; these are designed to stretch our scholars beyond their current levels of performance with the aim of establishing that higher level as their norm.
We don’t have a scholarship assessment week: we don’t want to impose our time scale on prospective pupils who might better demonstrate their passion and talent at another time. So, we will assess the suitability of candidates as part of a taster day or other visit to the school, as well as references from their current school. Some may not be ready yet to join an excellence programme, so we welcome applications throughout a pupil’s journey through the Senior School so that if they reach the required level at a different point in their school career, they can join whenever that happens to be.
There is an annual review which allows all parties to reflect on a pupil’s progress on the excellence programmes; as some join others may leave, reflecting the priorities of each individual at any one point in time. If priorities change again, a pupil may choose to re-apply at a later stage.
Scholarships and the associated excellence programmes are a great example of Monkton thinking differently; they uniquely celebrate passion and talent whilst avoiding the potentially corrosive effects of high stakes assessment, locked-in awards and fee reductions.
Bursaries
There are a limited number of small endowment funds which provide bursaries to enable pupils who meet certain specified criteria to come to Monkton who would otherwise be unable to do so on financial grounds. A limited number of bursaries are also offered each year, out of School funds, with the level of assistance offered being means-tested and dependent on completion and assessment of a full confidential statement of financial circumstances.
There is no fixed limit to the level of assistance provided in any single case, although financially there is a total limit to the amount of assistance that can be offered to pupils in any one year. Higher priority is given to children of clergy or missionaries, or where special circumstances give rise to a particularly deserving case. It is currently very unusual for bursaries to be granted to any day pupils.