Habs Partnerships & Monksmead School
Each week, Monksmead School and Haberdashers' Elstree come together for nine different sessions covering both academic lessons, support and enrichment and extra-curricular clubs.
This includes the following areas:
Science
Spanish
Swimming
Fencing
Maths Support
Music
Board Games Club
Languages & Culture Club
Art & Mindfulness
Sign Language.
Aims
Partnerships is one of six strands of our 2030 strategy, and is fundamental to developing students who are courageous, curious, ambitious, and – above all – able to make a profound impact in their community. Our work is led by our students, with hundreds building unique learning opportunities every week, both for others and for themselves.
Partnerships aims to build mutually beneficial connections between the Habs community and our local community in order to:
Address educational disadvantage in our local area;
Enable Habs pupils to have a profound and sustained impact in their community;
Broaden Habs pupils’ education, including their human and social education.
2024-25 Partnerships in numbers:
52 hours per week of co-curricular and academic curriculum and enrichment sessions
371 Habs students involved every week
56 Habs staff involved every week
1400 Partner school students involved every week
69,000 individual hours spent working in partnership
Background
This partnership was found on the basis of reducing educational disadvantage and connecting Haberdashers Elstree with its local community.
Whilst at the same time enabling opportunities for students at Habs to experience an education beyond an academic standard offer.
Resources
Transport to and from Habs Elstree for Partner School staff and students.
Transport for Habs students and staff to Partner Schools.
52 teaching hours per week.
School facilities such as swimming pools, sports centres, science labs, technology workshops and music rooms.
Impact
In a recent survey of Habs students, 92.1% believe Partnership sessions have had a positive impact on their confidence.
98.7% said that Partnerships sessions had an impact on improving their communication skills with 68.4% believing it had a significant impact.
94.8% thought that Partnerships had a positive impact on improving their initiative and adaptability.
Also, 100% felt that the Partnerships session had a positive impact and benefit to the partner school students.
Student comments:
“Students that I have worked with feel more confident in asking and answering questions. They are more able to complete tasks independently and more accurately, and they often ask me about advanced things with which I can help them with further.”
“I feel that the kids really look forward to these sessions as they are really different to their regular lessons. I do believe that they have improved their maths skills especially in their times tables”
“They are more confident, more lively and more willing to engage in lessons. They are so happy when we arrive!”
Pupil Involvement
This is a mutually beneficial relationship involving students from Habs Boys' and Habs Girls' Schools in Year 10 to 13 and students in Key Stage 1 and 2 at Monksmead School.
Frequency
Each week of the school year (2024-2025) there are eight Partnership sessions, each lasting between 30 minutes and an hour.

