Like all HMC schools are or should be, Wrekin is a very good school: all the things you’d expect to be able to do here are here. Exam results are very good as are facilities and the range of activities. We have a huge campus for our size, bigger than most HMC schools, and have a blend of ancient and very modern buildings as we build out of our Victorian traditions an education for the modern age.
So what is different about Wrekin apart from the generous space in which our pupils can roam? I am loathe to use the term ‘USP’ because we are talking about pupils not produce. Our difference is that, alongside the all-important curricular and co-curricular provision and success, we put an emphasis on employability and have a stand-alone Business School devoted to it where pupils learn what it takes to be employable and practise those skills. Connected to this pursuit of employability, we have the most successful Duke of Edinburgh Award programme for many miles around, with a really remarkable number of our students getting Gold before they leave us. Our ambition for pupils is that they leave Wrekin more ready for the world of work and life than they would do if they were schooled elsewhere. More ready for work and the prospect of demanding things like marriage and, what a prospect, having their own children one day. Our sixth formers look after the younger years here by being formally trained to be supportive as safe-guarders, mentors and teachers.
Wrekin keeps its eye on the big picture and welcomes a diverse range of pupils: from the Midlands, further flung English counties and from all over the world, each one being set his or her own Challenge Grades in exams and expected to get them in an environment that is supportive and so genuinely friendly we can afford to be frank and still maintain our good relationships. This is not a single sex or highly selective school: it is a deliberate representation of society that awaits us all: full of very different types. Wrekinians mix extraordinarily well and can work with anyone. It is not a coincidence that many go on to run their own businesses. The heroes and heroines of Wrekin are those who get their Challenge Grades whether they are a row of B grades at GCSE, or places at Cambridge, and each year we see those outcomes as well as people going straight into paid apprenticeships at major firms, as well as onto art college or into professional sport. We have absolutely no prejudice about an outcome for one of our pupils provided it is a good one and it is the right one for the individual.
Wrekinians are invited (and occasionally if required gently pushed) into all aspects of school life and, whilst it is common elsewhere to carry out one or two co-curricular activities, here it is common for pupils to be multi-tasking and involved in three or four. Our awesome Latin motto ‘Aut Vincere Aut Mori’ translates today as ‘’Give it a Go!’’ and we believe that real confidence and humility arise out of working with others in as many contexts as possible including those out of one’s ‘comfort zone’. The outcome of a good schooling should be that we are, as my mother would say, ‘fit to live and fit to live with’. Wrekin is hugely ambitious for the personal growth of its pupils and closely monitors that growth so that no-one goes under the radar.
We have a Development Plan in place as we seek to improve every aspect of this very good school, and we expect as much from ourselves as we do from our pupils. New facilities are in place and others planned: now is a good time to come and see us.
If you think there’s some sense in what we stand for, do drop in at Wrekin whenever you like. It would be a pleasure to meet you and yours, and to discuss how our education could work for you.
Mr Tim Firth
Head
