Castle Vale School and Specialist Performing Arts College is a secondary school located in Castle Vale, Birmingham, England. The school has been awarded specialist status as an Arts College.
The school opened in new premises in 1967. The buildings were completed and officially opened in 1969. It was built to serve the large new housing estate which was in the final stages of construction at this time, and now has Performing Arts specialist status.
At the time of its last OFSTED inspection in early-2007, there were a total of 876 students.
In 2012, NASUWT staff took strike action against management practices at the school. A one-day strike was held on March 7th, 2012 which stimulated action by the Local Authority to resolve the problems. However, further strikes were held as the School NASUWT representative was singled out by the Head for speaking to the media and another member was sent on gardening leave. In May, the Head resigned and the school started the procedure to become an academy.
The school has been subject to a furor regarding the new head teacher, Charlotte Blencowe, implementing "tinkle cards" permitting children to leave class a maximum of once per week to go to the toilet, a number of different hand signals to communicate in class and a strict policy over school uniform. Parents protested, and eggs were thrown at teachers.
The school suffered further uncertainty when AET arranged for Miss Blencowe to leave after only one term to move back to Yorkshire. Their reasons were contradictory, confusing and does not indicate particularly skillful or caring management. The school will be managed nominally by Mr Simon Turney and his team from another AET Academy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgrave_High_School) for at least one, possibly two, terms.
Now to be known as Greenwood Academy.
Famous quotes containing the words castle, vale, school, specialist, performing, arts and/or college:
“Let me be at the place of the castle.
Let the castle be within me.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;”
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)
“We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no laboring i’ the winter.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“He was no specialist except in the relation of things.... He took most of his materials at second hand.... But no matter who mined the gold, the image and superscription are his.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate,—and meantime it is only puss and her tail.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But here comes Generosity; giving—not to a decayed artist—but to the arts and sciences themselves.—See,—he builds ... whole schools and colleges for those who come after. Lord! how they will magnify his name!
—One honest tear shed in private over the unfortunate, is worth them all.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“When a girl of today leaves school or college and looks about her for material upon which to exercise her trained intelligence, there are a hundred things that force themselves upon her attention as more vital and necessary than mastering the housewife.”
—Cornelia Atwood Pratt, U.S. author, women’s magazine contributor. The Delineator: A Journal of Fashion, Culture and Fine Arts (January 1900)