Specialist & Extended Schools

St Philomena’s has been a Technology College for 10 years and in the last 12 months we have taken a second specialism in Modern Foreign Languages. Specialist school status is about widening the range of opportunities open to our pupils, raising standards of education and achievement in the school and opening our facilities to the wider community. Technology College status means that we specialise in Technology, Mathematics, Science and Information Technology. In addition, since 2006 we have specialised in Languages.

 This means that:
  • Our own students are offered excellent opportunities in these subject areas
  • We offer education and facilities related to these subjects to our local community, including other schools, businesses and other organisations.
For several years now we have run our Technology College week in the summer term, where all of our pupils take part in a rich variety of activities both in and out of their normal lessons. For the past few years the Technology Department has helped year 9 pupils to design, produce and run a themed café which has opened to parents and visitor for one evening in July. This year, in a break from tradition we will be presenting an evening which will feature our own Dragon’s Den, where pupils will present products that they have been designing to a panel of ‘dragons’. The evening will also include some family entertainment in the form of French quiz show, Une Famille en Or. Being a specialist school means that we provide education and other facilities to schools and other organisations in our community. Our provision includes:
  • A weekly cyber-café for adults with learning disabilities in partnership with Sutton MENCAP
  • Weekly language classes in primary schools
  • Science and Maths classes for primary schools
  • Computer training for healthcare professionals which we run in partnership with our local NHS trust
  • Computer literacy training for parents of pupils at the school
  • Evening classes for parents and friends in German, French, Spanish and Italian
  • Professional training for teachers from other schools in modern foreign languages and in technology
  • A DNA workshop for secondary school students run by the Biology department.