Richard Huish College, Taunton

Richard Huish College
Richard Huish College Front Sign, December 2015
Location South Road
Taunton
Somerset
TA1 3DZ
England
Local authority Somerset
DfE URN 130808 Tables
Ofsted Reports
Gender Mixed
Website Richard Huish

Richard Huish College is a further education and sixth-form college in Taunton, Somerset, England. Located on a single site in South Road, about a mile from the center of Taunton, it offers A-level courses, apprenticeships and vocational courses.

The college has around 2,000 full-time students aged 16–18 studying A Levels and BTEC courses, and 500 studying for apprenticeships and professional qualifications. A small number of GCSEs are offered for 16-year-old students wanting to progress to the sixth form.

History

The college was named after its benefactor, Richard Huish, a Taunton wool merchant from the 17th century who made his fortune in London. When he died in 1615, his will included monies to establish an educational facility in Taunton, which came into fruition as a grammar school for boys in the 18th century. Since 1979, Richard Huish College has been a sixth form college.

Campus

Willow building

The college occupies a site of 8 hectares (20 acres), of which 70% is sports fields, in the south of Taunton. Its buildings, which range in age from 1880 to 2015, take their names from some of the trees that cover the campus. The site is alleged to have previously been an Aboretum.

Over the period 2000–2009, a variety of building projects resulted in the Willow Building, the Hawthorn Building, Linden, and in 2009 Rowan House, each providing outstanding facilities for teaching and learning, with additional facilities for music and sport. In 2003, the Learning Centre at the heart of the campus, which is named after the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, a former pupil of Huish's Grammar School, was extended and completely refurbished.

In 2006 the sports dome was opened, which at the time was a ground breaking project for an inflatable dome for sports. It is due to be replaced during 2016, by a sports hall, including a viewing area, gym, changing facilities and a classroom. During 2015, a new cafe area and social space was built, including the first floor Redwood Suite. The cafe area includes a Costa Coffee. The Redwood Centre was renovated to house the drama and dance studios.

Technology

There is a campus wide wi-fi network installed so that staff and students are able to use compatible mobile devices to access the college network. Summer 2008 saw the removal of all the printers campus wide. These were replaced with more Multi-Function Devices that have been configured with ‘Follow me Printing’. Staff and students can also work from home using the college's remote-desktop service and can borrow books from the LC using the "self-service" kiosk. Students can use any of the three banks of "self-issue" laptop lockers to enable them to access IT resources anywhere on campus. More recently, the college's desktop machines are all being upgraded to 64-bit operating systems across the Microsoft and Apple networks. Over the summer of 2015 the college internet connection on the JANET network was upgraded to 500MB and industry-standard software has been deployed across all of the college workstations, including Microsoft Office products and Adobe Creative Cloud. Investment is being made in new "interactive TVs" rather than projector-based smart boards.

Curriculum

The college offers a large range of A Level and BTEC subjects. There are more than 45 subjects offered at A Level (Level 3). As well as traditional school subjects, many other A Level subjects are offered such as archaeology, classical civilisation, dance, economics, environmental studies, geology, government and politics, law, photography, psychology, sociology and statistics.

An increasing range of BTEC courses (Level 3 vocational courses equivalent to A Levels) are offered. They currently include applied science, business, creative media production, graphic design, health and social care/health sciences, information technology, music production, popular music and sport. A small number of GCSEs are offered for those wanting to progress to the sixth form. The College places a strong emphasis on the breadth of its enrichment activities for students.

The college also delivers apprenticeships and traineeships in the areas of accountancy, medical administration, business and administration, call centre operations, customer service, healthcare, IT user and IT professional, team leading and management, health and social care. At Level 4 and above, the college offers FdA and BA degrees in business and sports development and coaching,and professional courses in Accountancy (AAT, ACCA and CIMA) and Institute of Leadership and Management course (ILM). There are also short courses in computer skills and bespoke training services.

Exam results

The college's A2-Level exam results are as follows:[1]

  • 2003/2004 - 99.3% pass rate
  • 2004/2005 - 99.7% pass rate: A-B: 71%
  • 2005/2006 - 99.8%+ pass rate: A-B: 75%
  • 2006/2007 - 99.2%+ pass rate: A-B: 74%
  • 2007/2008 - 99%+ pass rate: A-B: 55%
  • 2008/2009 - 99%+ pass rate: A-B: 69%
  • 2009/2010 - 99.3% pass rate: A-B: 55.9%
  • 2010/2011 - 99.4% pass rate: A-B: 58.8%
  • 2011/2012 - 99.1% pass rate: A-B: 56.5%
  • 2012/2013 - 99.1% pass rate: A-B: 55.2%
  • 2013/2014 - 98.7% pass rate: A-B: 55%
  • 2014/2015 - 99% pass rate: A-B: 57%

Notable students

Sport

Huish Sport runs a sports enrichment programme. Each year, over 500 students participate in Huish Sport across 19 different sports.

Richard Huish College currently offers performance sport programmes for Cricket, Football, Rugby and Basketball. There is also the 'Active Huish' scheme which encourages students to take part in sports they previously would not have considered and also provides a more relaxed atmosphere in which to exercise.

References

  1. ↑ "Department for Children, Schools and Families". Retrieved 2008-06-06.
  2. ↑ "Gareth Andrew". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  3. 1 2 Colledge, Matthew (27 January 2014). "Top 10 celebrity links to Taunton". Somerset County Gazette. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  4. ↑ "The Huish Award 2016". Arthur C. Clarke Foundation. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  5. ↑ Cole, Amy (3 February 2017). "Stephen Daldry, director of The Crown on Netflix, says Taunton will always be home". Somerset County Gazette. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  6. ↑ "Neil Edwards". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  7. ↑ "Carl Gazzard". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  8. ↑ "Reputation". Richard Huish College. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  9. ↑ "About us > Why we are outstanding > Reputation | Richard Huish College". www.huish.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-03-16.
  10. ↑ "Jack Leach". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  11. ↑ "Solo skier Hannah reaches South Pole in record time". West Somerset Free Press. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  12. ↑ Shimmon, Katie (27 September 2005). "College days Name: Keith Parsons". Guardian. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  13. ↑ "Michael Parsons". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  14. ↑ BBC. "Pengilly's 85mph bob skeleton". Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  15. ↑ "Janus: The Papers of Edward Shire". janus.lib.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-03-16.
  16. ↑ "Sam Spurway". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  17. ↑ "Paul Williams , Cleric • Biography & Facts". Biography & Facts. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  18. ↑ "THIS WEEKEND: Taunton Literary Festival 2016 to start - here's what you can look forward to". Somerset County Gazette. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  19. ↑ "Rob Woodman". Cricinfo. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.