randstad logo

Learning today: leading tomorrow

Bentley Wood High School for Girls is a medium sized secondary school for girls in Harrow set in glorious grounds with over one thousand students between the ages of 11 and 19. The school has a very diverse intake of girls from a large catchment area.

We were in the top 1% of schools in England for student progress (2015) for the 3rd consecutive year with a value added measure of 1,065.

“Outstanding teaching stimulates the students’ passion, igniting their enthusiasm and interests for learning. Students’ behaviour around the school and their attitudes to learning in lessons are exemplary” Ofsted Outstanding 2012.

Bentley Wood High School has been nationally recognised for its exceptional 2015 performance by the Schools, Students and Teachers Network (SSAT). To learn more click here.

We are proud of our fine record of academic achievement within our safe, caring and stimulating environment where pupils learn happily and well. We encourage each pupil to develop a wide range of skills and interests, to achieve their personal best and to work co-operatively with consideration for all members of our learning community at all times.

To learn more about our school view our:
Ofsted
Prospectus
Our sixth form
School performance tables
Examination Results

Our aims

Bentley Wood High School for Girls aims to be:

• An outstanding Mathematics, Computing and Science School educating and enabling young women to achieve their best in the 21st century
• A centre of excellence with the highest expectations embracing and supporting the community
• Providing a stimulating learning and teaching environment in which every student enjoys her education and feels safe and secure and is able to fulfil her potential
• An outstanding learning environment which meets the needs of every student equally irrespective of ability, aptitude, ethnic background or disability and which positively provides for their physical and emotional requirements
• Providing a challenging broad and balanced curriculum from Years 7 to 13 with a range of academic and career related pathways as well as a wide range of extra curricular experiences
• Developing learners to have an understanding and appreciation of our natural environment, diversity and their place in the global community
• A reflective school with strong leadership

We believe that these aims can be best achieved through our strong partnership between school and families and our communities beyond school. By working together and setting the highest expectations, we can enable our students to gain their personal best in every area of the curriculum.

apply here

A curriculum that offers highly positive experiences and rich opportunities

At Bentley Wood High School for Girls you will have the opportunity to deliver a broad and balanced curriculum across all key stages that provides for all abilities, challenging the most able and developing skills and talents for all groups of students. The aim is to help each girl to achieve her best, develop her confidence and encourage her to be a thoughtful and active member of society. We will support you to achieve this through a close partnership between school and home.

Through creative, inspirational teaching you will be able to help our students home in on their strengths and develop skills in areas where they may be less confident. This enables all students to achieve their very best.

The majority of students study the English Baccalaureate at Key Stage 4. To achieve the English Baccalaureate, students must achieve a grade C or above in English, mathematics, science and a chosen humanities and modern foreign language option.

After Key Stage 4 our students move on to our very highly successful Sixth Form where they will study four subjects at AS Level in Year 12 and three subjects in Year 13, after which the majority of the students move on to university.

We offer a Saturday school in which teachers can nominate students for help with resits. We also train our sixth formers to support teaching in our lower school.

To learn more about our curriculum click here

To learn more about our co-curricular activities click here

You can view our school timetable by clicking here

The Highest Quality Professional Development

We believe in life long learning for all. As a Senior Leadership Team we encourage our staff to embrace opportunities and our enhanced CPD programme is tailored to our staff’s individual talents and potential.

We are a lead school in the Harrow Collegiate Teaching Schools' Alliance where we work collaboratively with schools across the region to provide high quality training opportunities for all our staff. The collegiate offers a unique opportunity to participate in rich and varied CPD and Succession Planning Programmes run by Paractitioners for Practitioners.

We offer specialist programmes for:
• Teaching assistants
• Support staff
• Teaching
• Leadership

We are currently running The Women into Leadership programme which is funded by NCTL. The funding is for 2 years and therefore there will be more places available in September 2017.

For more details on the alliance and the programmes we offer click here. In addition to our programmes we run conferences and Teachmeets, and offer coaching and mentoring and school to school support.

The network of schools that we work with have offered our staff the opportunity to work in a variety of schools including a primary school we sponsor, to further expand their teaching experiences. We work with a number of higher education institutes, which allows our staff to gain further qualifications and we also link with them in our involvement in Action research.

We are passionate about talent spotting and we are creative in our approach to progression and development. There are many examples within our team where staff have progressed and been promoted at different stages of their career with us. Because of our creative and innovative approach we can offer progression in curriculum and pastorally specialisms as well as for aspiring leaders. There are opportunities to join and lead our strategic improvement groups, which are groups that focus on development strategies across the school. These groups look at how they would like the teaching and pedagogy to lead in the school.

As a Teaching School we act as a hub of training and support for new teachers. NQTs progress well in the school in their second year they take on responsibility and in the third year they could have the opportunity to take on a lead role, start up a subject and get involved in our strategic school improvement groups.

Working together and setting the highest expectations

We are a friendly, supportive and positive team and morale is high. We share a strong work ethic and there is big emphasis on team work both across the whole school and within departments. We are all here to help each other. We have rigorous systems in place that allow us to deliver the highest quality of education to our girls. The wellbeing of staff is very important to us and we are always looking for ways to support our staff. We have a wellbeing committee, and are currently in the process of completing a whole school wellbeing survey; we also conduct personal interviews with our staff to see where we can support further. We are also proud to say none of our staff miss their child’s sports day or school performance.

We are a sociable team and our staff enjoy a variety of activities and events across the year which includes: sports clubs, a baking club, choir, yoga, staff BBQs and parties. We encourage our staff to contribute to all areas of school life and many of our staff get involved in activities and events outside of their subject areas, a great example of this is our whole school musical productions.