Sandwich Technology School

It was founded in May 1935 and admitted 380 children born from 1921 to 1923. The school currently enrols 1400 students and the current Headteacher is Mrs Tracy Savage.[1] The school was formerly known as Sandwich Secondary School. In 2018 Mrs Tracy Savage introduced the phone/tablet ban (students can no longer use their phones anywhere on the school site). In 2017 the school uniform was updated to have the school logo on the trousers.

Sandwich Technology School is an 11 – 18 school for girls and boys with specialist Technology College, Applied Learning and Training School status. Technology Colleges are designed to be innovative, to offer enhanced learning opportunities beyond the National Curriculum in Maths, Science, Technology and Information Communications Technology.

Applied Learning status was achieved in April 2006. This was made possible through commercial sponsorship and additional funding from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. It has enabled the development of vocational courses.

Training School status was awarded in April 2007.

GCSE results: 2005 66%, 2006 72%, 2007 79%, 2008 74%, 2009 78%, 2010 87%.

The school is listed by the Department for Children, Schools and Families as one of the leading schools in England, with the biggest sustained improvement in the proportion of students gaining five good GCSEs from 2004 to 2007, and an OfSTED inspection in December 2008 concluded that “Sandwich Technology School is an outstanding school. It provides an excellent quality of education for students.”[2]

School accommodation and resources include a sports and leisure centre, floodlit all-weather pitch (recently opened for the use of both the school and external organisations and the general public at certain times in the year), an Open Learning Centre (Joint library and computer room with around 40 all in one desktop PC's), a drama studio, in-house cinema, science and technology rooms and several computer rooms. Additionally, the school has its own community arts centre, a construction centre and a hair and beauty teaching salon.

There is an extensive ICT network linking all classrooms on the campus (not on phones, due to the new phone/tablet ban). All teaching rooms are equipped with data projectors and have interactive whiteboards, and sound systems connected to the schools' intranet. Additionally, students have 24/7 access to learning resources through the school's VLE and website. There is also an email exchange services available to all students and staff, which can be used to post important information throughout the school and also used for sending pieces of own learning. There is also the ability to send emails to external addresses.

Students belong to one of four Colleges: Liberty, Endeavour, Union, Discovery.

The school has a No Phone Policy, where if a student is caught on their phone, it is taken off them and their parents can collect the next day or students can collect it 2 days later.

Despite claiming it is one of the best schools in the county, its average grade marking is below country average by about 50%. Only about 25% of students in 2019 got a five or higher in Maths and English when the national average was 43% and the county average was 49%. This problem grows every year. The Progress 8 score was -0.44 (below average).

The school has a 3.5 star review on Google, with the main issue being lack of anti-bullying methods.

• Sandwich Technology School website