King Edward VI Five Ways School

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King Edward VI Five Ways
File:KEFWcrest.GIF
Founded: 1883
Type: Humanities-specialist grammar
Location: Birmingham, West Midlands, UK
LEA: Birmingham City Council
Ofsted number: 103552
School Category: Secondary
Headteacher: David J. Wheeldon
Staff: Over 100
Students: Approx. 1,100
Age Range: 11-18
Gender: Co-educational
Website: http://www.ke5ways.bham.sch.uk

King Edward VI Five Ways (KEFW) (grid reference SP000814) is a selective, humanities-specialist grammar school located in the Bartley Green area of south Birmingham, England.

Established in 1883 as part of the King Edward VI Foundation, the school's original site was at Five Ways, an area of Birmingham just south of the city centre. However, in 1958, in view of the very limited amount of land available so close to the centre of Birmingham, the school moved to a new 30 acre site in Bartley Green. Though the majority of the land has since been used to house the residents of the town, Five Ways students still enjoy the benefits of vast playing fields and sports grounds both in front and behind the main building.

Since relocating, Five Ways as a school has grown in every sense of the word. Not only has the number of pupils in attendance risen from the pre-war figure of 200 to where it currently stands at around 1,150, but a stream of vast building projects have steadily been completed to house the influx of new students and ensure they learn in the most modern, technologically competent classrooms. Having introduced girls in the years following 1998, today Five Ways is the largest co-educational state grammar school in the West Midlands, and one of the top five co-ed grammar schools nationally.

Five Ways today

Currently the school has around 1,150 pupils in attendance, and over 100 staff including the current headmaster D. J. Wheeldon, a former teacher at the school. Five Ways prides itself on a high degree of cultural and racial diversity amongst its pupils, although many would argue that there is a disproportionate class bias - the majority of students having a middle class background. The school is strongly rooted in the Anglican tradition of its founder King Edward VI, and Christian hymns are sung every Monday morning in full-school assembly. Other religions and faiths are catered for in Friday morning assemblies.

King Edward VI Five Ways is amongst the best schools in the country, and is tenth in the school league tables.[1] Potential pupils are required to sit an eleven plus entrance examination administered by the foundation. Despite it determining the success of their entrance application, pupils are not advised to engage in intensive training during the months prior to the exam. This is widely regarded as a bad idea since it reduces the credibility of the eleven plus results, and students that were subject to tutoring may find they struggle upon entry into the school. Five Ways places a strong emphasis on academic excellence; the majority of students stay on to study in its Sixth Form, before entering University level education.

Extracurricular activities

Sporting

Athletics

The school has an athletics team in the Summer term, although the infrequency of school assemblies at this time (due to exams) means it does not gain the same degree of school-wide publicity as many other teams. Five Ways has produced several notable athletes, including one former student who went on to compete in the Commonwealth Games for England. [2]

Cricket

Cricket is considered to be the traditional Summer term sport within Five Ways. Teams of all age groups compete regularly, attaining frequent notable achievements: for example, the year 11 teams in 2005 and 2006 won the Docker Shield, the oldest school cricket competition in the world. [3] There exists much rivalry between Five Ways and other King Edward school's in the area.

Rugby Union

Five Ways' traditional sport, Rugby is most prolific in the school's 2006/07 Year 10, whom have been unbeaten in 72 consecutive matches. Run by Mr Smith, their very passionate coach, they have become the most successful team in school. Five Ways regularly enter the Daily Mail Cup, with mixed success. For the last two years, there have been Year 9 Tours to Biarritz, in France.

Non-Sporting

Chess

Five Ways has had a strong history in chess. It was run for 32 years by Mr Wright, but now Mr Parpaggar is the teacher running it. Five Ways takes part in the Birmingham & District Junior Chess League. There is a commemorative trophy in Mr Wright's name awarded to the winner of the school chess trophy. A complete history of the winners can be seen on the website. Notably, the team is run by the players itself, with the captain having unprecedented powers in comparison to other activities regarding team selection and other issues Five Ways finished second in Division II of the Birmingham League in the 2005/06 school year. A list of Five Ways chess players ECF grades can be found here. Five Ways' rivals are not the other foundation schools, but Shenley Court, a school local to ours. Five Ways achieved their first victory in 38 years over their rivals in 2005. This has been distorted thanks to the fact it has generally been Five Ways' second or third team playing Shenley Court's first team.

The team is showing a lot of promise for the future, as the Year 7s won the Birmingham & District Junior Chess League First Form tournament for the first time on January 12, 2007. They topped a leaderboard boasting the usual chess powerhouses, KES, and KE Camp Hill. Two of the Year 7s in attendance are in the school's First Team, ranked 5 and 6 in the school.

It has recently launched its own website, which can be found here.

Debating

The last year has been one of some success for the debating society, led by Ms Ayres, and driven by a particularly talented top end of the school.

On Saturday, 29th April, 2006 Faye McCabe, Michael Anderson, Melissa Sykes and Heather Curtis, travelled to Oxford to participate in the final of the National Competition for Young Debaters. M Anderson gained 11th speaker position out of 130 speakers and became the first state school speaker on the tab. In terms of team position, the 'A Team', comprised of Michael Anderson and Faye McCabe were ranked as 11th, whilst the 'B Team' of Heather Curtis and Melissa Sykes were a respectable 33rd out of a total of 64 participating teams.

On Wednesday, 22nd March, 2006, Richaed Robinson and Tim Swann competed in the grand final of the Midlands School Debating Competition, one of four teams to make it thus far out of over 100 schools competing, and after three qualifying round. They argused for the motion "This house believes in God", but in the end were pipped to the post by Cheltenham Ladies College and King Edwards School, to pick up a respectable third place overall.

Other debating successes this year include breaking to the finals in the Oxford Schools Competition, and reaching the finals of the Cambridge Schools Competition, two hiherto unprecedented triumphs for Five ways.

Up and coming competitions this year include Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Durrham, Debating Matters and ECU.

Drama

At the moment the head of the drama department is Mr Merrell, who joined KEFW in 2005. So far he has led many successful school productions such as The Canterbury Tales (as a full school production) by Geoffrey Chaucer and The Tempest by William Shakespeare in 2005, which was entered into the BBC Shakespeare competition. Also, at Christmas last year, was the upper school production of "Black Comedy" by Peter Shaffer, which was full of many talented actors. In 2006 he directed Bugsey Malone by Alan Parker with another full school cast. The latest plays were the The Agamemnon; an all female cast of "Macbeth", which along with Mr Drury's production of "The Merchant of Venice", have been entered into this year's BBC Schools Shakespeare Festival. The lower school (KS3) has also Performed two plays: "Tom Sawyer" and "Ernie's Incredible Illucinations".

Foundation Drama Competition

The FDC has been running for two years now, with foundation schools Camp Hill Boys, Handsworth Girls and King Edward VI Five Ways competing. Mr Merrell organised the plays Knots (KS3) and Prufrock's Love Song (KS4). In 2005 the overall trophy was won by Handsworth Girls school. In 2006 it was won by King Edward VI Five Ways, as was the StageCraft award (won by the cast of Knots - S.Bradwell, I.Cope, H.Curtis, V.Daji, S.Doal, A.Kinder, O. L - LD, A.Matthews, C.Onyilimba, S.Sharman, H.Simpson, A.Stone and J.Sung) the best KS3 actress award (won by S.Sharman) and the best KS3 overall award (won by the cast of Knots).

Music

The school is rich in musical talent of all kinds; much of this is propagated within the school itself, via the weekly instrumental lessons on offer. The lessons are taught in sealed practice rooms within the school's music block, and are free for students studying GCSE or A-level Music, as well as those eligible for free school meals. Other students make termly payments in advance of lessons.

There are a number of thriving musical ensembles within Five Ways, which students are actively encouraged to participate in if they wish to do so. Most notable are the school's Main Orchestra and Wind Band, which rehearse a wide range of material ranging taken from all musical periods. Other ensembles include the Training Orchestra (for new and amateur players), Chamber Choir (for members of the upper school) and Junior Choir (for members of the lower school). All ensembles perform at the Autumn and Spring concerts, along with selections of solos, duets and small-groups. The standard of performance at these concerts is consistently high, and the hall is invariably full of classical music fans, many of whom are supporting parents and teachers.

During December, with the advent of Christmas, the choirs of Five Ways visit nearby higher education institute Newman College, to perform a carol service in the chapel. Partly due to the favourable acoustics the choirs are able to enjoy in the chapel, the event is a highly successful, enriching and spiritual date in the Five Ways calendar, awaited with eager anticipation matching even that for the concerts themselves.

House system

In keeping with the traditions of most 20th and 21st century secondary schools, Five Ways has its own house system. The system operates by allocating each student into one of four houses upon their entry into the school. Throughout the academic year, each student is then expected to attain as many house points as possible, so increasing their house's chance of winning the end of year house cup.

The houses (Roach, Dobinson, Barker and MacCarthy) are so named after the first four Headmasters of the school, and each has a colour associated with it: green for Roach; blue for Dobinson; red for Barker; and yellow for MacCarthy. The significance of these colours becomes clear during house sport events: students are required to wear their house's T-shirt, which is the colour associated with that particular house. In this way these colours act to unify house sports teams during events, and form the basis of the intra-Five Ways sports competition kit.

Attaining points

Traditionally, the vast majority of house points were attained by being awarded so called house merit points, for good contributions in class, impressive performances on homework, and other minor achievements. These were, and still are, recorded at the back of a student's personal organiser, being totaled at the end of the academic year. Until recently, the only other way to score house points was on sports day. Perhaps misleadingly named, sports day entails in fact only an afternoon of sports events for the lower part of the school (years 7 to 10), ranging from discus and javelin to the 100m sprint and the high jump.

However, the recent revival in the house system (see below) has brought with it a wide variety of both sporting and non-sporting events, throughout the whole year, which involve the participation of every age group in the school. Varied in nature, these include house cross-country, su doku and even cookery; a full list is available here.

Recent revival and house events day

There is little doubt that in recent years there has been a large effort on the part of the senior management to revive and update the house system, providing an invigorating and exciting platform from which to organise healthily competitive events for students of all age groups. This new pro-house initiative was unofficially launched in the Summer term 2006, by a house events day for years 7 and 8. The concept of the day was rooted in drawing parallels between our house system, and that of none other than Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Each Five Ways house became a Hogwarts house, according to its colour (for example the green Roach became Slytherin), and the 11 to 13 year olds for which the event was organised were set a variety of tasks throughout the day, circulating in groups between four skill areas: creative, drama, active and quiz. Almost entirely organised and executed by prefects in the then Lower Sixth, the event was unanimously heralded an all round success, and is likely to become a yearly feature.

As discussed in the above section, the 2005-2006 academic year saw the introduction of a wide variety of new, year-round house events. Perhaps the one which demonstrates most effectively just how much of a success the revival of the house system has been is the tug-o-war. Twice yearly, this event sees students from all age groups gathered in the sports hall eagerly clutching a rope, tugging as hard as they can, in the name of the house system. It is quite custom for the whole sports hall to be filled with passionate spectators, cheering on those involved. The event concludes with a staff house tug-o-war, an event which has made members of staff such as Mr. H. L. Richards notorious for amusing facial expressions.

Results

Current totals are announced weekly, during Friday morning assemblies; the gasps and chatter that follows the announcements are perhaps testimony to just how much of an intricate part of the Five Ways experience the house system has become.

Yearly totals are announced in the final assembly of the year. The 2006-2007 academic year standings were:

  1. Barker
  2. Dobinson
  3. Roach
  4. MacCarthy

Features

School Council

Five Ways has an effective longstanding School Council. The Council comprises an elected representative from every form in the school: just short of 50. It is Chaired by Kevin Holder, and served by a facilitating Executive. For the 2006/07 school year, a new constitution was publicly launched, and was unanimously ratified by the Council on its inaugural meeting. The Constitution was designed to improve the speed of decisions, and increase the power of individual school representatives. The constitution was not universally popular however.

The School Council aims to bring about the changes in the school that its pupils wish to see. Some notable achievements include:

  • Clocks in each classroom
  • Benches on the playground
  • Basketball Hoops on the playground
  • Water fountains
  • Toilet refurbishment, and the appointment of a full time cleaner
  • Football facilities (A set of plastic cones)
  • Plasma TVs in the canteen and Sixth form common room
  • Changes to food pricing
  • Construction of new changing rooms

The 2006/7 school year has also seen the Council make a conscious effort to be more known throughout the school, through a variety of methods including sponsoring showings of various films, posters around the school, and running charity events such as the Five Ways interpretation of World AIDS Day

The School Council has gone from strength to strength, pursuing its perpetual aim of improving the student experience. Find out the facts about how the School Council is working for you. Check out the website:

http://www.ke5ways.bham.sch.uk/sections/5/schoolcouncil/index.htm

Facilities

The school has extensive grounds and facilities. Situated on a large 30 acre site, there are many outdoor sports pitches for a variety of sports including (amongst others) Rugby, Cricket, Hockey, Rounders, Football, Athletics and Netball. Almost all indoor sports are catered for, including Swimming and the Tyn-Y-Waen Climbing Wall – which was opened by climber Ben Moon in June 2005. The school has buildings, known as “blocks” for subject groups, and a separate humanities building (which currently also houses the 6th form centre, and room E1). There are a number of dedicated computer rooms, a staffed library, a Connexions career room, and most classrooms are now equipped with internet access and Smart Boards. The reception boasts a fine collection of clocks telling the time in many time zones, and an electronic notice board used for appearance rather than usefulness.

A recent acquisition by the school has been a mobile fieldwork unit for use by the Humanities Departments.

School song

Several decades ago, Five Ways acquired its own traditional school song. Despite having fallen out of use, current headmaster David J. Wheeldon, as part of his school renewal initiative, had it modernised and reinstated as an important, albeit infrequently seen, part of the school. Whilst the traditional version used to be sung, this is not the version now sung. The modern version has several words substituted for more appropriate alternatives: for example "boys" is replaced by "people" in view of the school's now co-educational status.

Currently, the school song only makes an appearance on special occasions, such as Speech Day and end of term assemblies.

Staff vs. 1st team cricket match

After the exams in July, there is a Staff v 1st Team cricket match. The staff are christened the "Staff Cavaliers". The match is a timed one-day cricket match, with no specific number of overs allotted per team. This allows all three results possible. The staff are bolstered by the presence of an ex-first class player, Mr Stuart Shephard. By arrangement, the Staff always bat first.

In 2007, the match was played on a sodden pitch after preceeding bad weather. The students won for the second time in 14 years, after chasing the 68 they were set for victory in the final over of the match.

School City Country
Babati Day Secondary School Babati Tanzania Tanzania
The English School Guangzhou China China
King Edward Public School Mahilpur India India
Christchurch Boy’s High School Christchurch New Zealand New Zealand
Afri-Twin Link Cape Town South Africa South Africa
St Just School Lyon France France
EDGE partnership link with group of schools in Chicago Chicago United States United States
Brekkuskoli School Akureyri Iceland Iceland
St. Francis School San Jose United States United States

Italics show proposed links.

The school has enjoyed its many international links worldwide, which have brought a wide range of opportunities, development, exchanges and experiences - social, charitable, curricular and developmental – to its pupils and staff.

These Links enabled Five Ways to win the DfES Full School Award, celebrating Internationalism and it was described as "a major honour for excellence in this field."

The Babati Link Group formed from within the school in 2003 exists to promote friendship and share educational resources with their Tanzanian friends at Babati Day School in the rurally remote town of Babati, Manyara.

Mr Wilson initiated this link after visiting Babati in 2002. The school has now raised several thousand pounds altogether to support Babati Day, all pupils taking part in fund raising. A trust fund has been set up and the money has been used for classroom renovation projects, air fares for Babati teachers to visit Britain, the cost of supporting an e-mail link between the schools, and so on.

A party of 45 students and teachers visited Babati in 2003, and carried out a classroom renovation. The Headmaster and a teacher colleague visited Birmingham in 2003-4, learning about teaching, management and leadership, as a result of which the school has developed a school improvement strategy.

One of the schools' World Challenge parties passed through Babati and helped build its first sports facility, a basketball court.

A second group of students and teachers travelled to Babati in July 2005. This group carried out renovations and also focused on teaching English as a foreign language. All students involved on the trip took Swahili lessons to facilitate this. Staff involved developed curriculum projects in English, Science, R.E. and Modern languages as a result of the visit.

The most recent activity in this vibrant school link, came in Summer 2006 when a small group of students from the VI Form travelled to Babati to complete the most vibrant and ambitious phase of the link to date. This visit saw the construction of a brand new ICT facility for Babati Day. Pupils from KEFW were actively involved in both the delivery of an ICT infrastructure, and the inaugural ICT lessons at the school, Supported by the Babati Link Group, a roadmap for future development of this facility has been put in place.

The English School

Five Ways was approached by Pate’s in 2005. They have an established link with the school in Guangzhou, but struggle to accommodate the numbers of students from the partner school that wish to visit Britain. Therefore we have agreed to assist. Six students spent time in Birmingham in July 2005 and a party of six sixth formers and Deputy Head Mrs Long will visit China in October 2005.

E-mail links are being set up. The intention is to further develop this link and add depth to the contacts at students and teacher levels.

King Edward Public School

Following an approach by the Chairman of King Edward School, who is the father of an ex-pupil, The Headmaster, David Wheeldon, and Deputy Head, Richard Fox, made a preliminary visit to Mahilpur in February 2004. Since then a group of students from India visited Birmingham in July 2004, and spent time in classes with Year 7 students. A group of sixth formers and two members of staff returned to India in February 2005. They carried out various teaching and learning activities. Ms Loren’s evaluation of this visit is below. The next stage is to embed the link with India into the curriculum. We also welcome another party from India in November 2005, this time including teachers who will study teaching and learning in British schools, as well as six Year 8 students.

Christchurch Boys' School

Links are being forged at the moment with Christchurch Boy’s High School in the South island of New Zealand.

The EDGE partnership is a thriving network of schools in south west Birmingham, working together on all aspects of education. A link has been established between this group and a similar network in Chicago. Our main partner school at the moment is Walter Payton College Preparatory High School which is a Math, Science and World Language High School. This is a CPD link aimed mainly at senior management at the moment. An exchange is currently taking place. The intention is to broaden this link to encompass teachers at all levels.

A link with St Francis High School in San Jose, California is being set up.

The school is also in the process of establishing a video conference link with Walter Payton High School in Chicago.

St Just School

A new link has been established by the French department with St Just School in Lyon, shown below.

The partnership school is a mixed comprehensive and very highly regarded school right in the centre of Lyon. This is an ideal exchange/link as Lyon is the twin town of Birmingham, while KEFW and Lycée St Just offer very similar characteristics.

The link involves a number of British schools in a triangular relationship, each with two South African schools; one private school and one township school. After some initial problems the link is now becoming established under Mr Webster’s guidance.

The intention is that once initial contacts have been established, students will begin to communicate at a more advanced level, sharing ideas on study projects and using their contacts to inform work in various subjects. As well as this, it is planned to establish a video conference link.

Teachers will have the opportunity to share ideas on teaching and learning, and teacher visits between the schools for CPD purposes are envisaged soon.

It is hoped also to arrange a sports tour to South Africa, taking in the two partner schools.

Brekkuskoli School

The link with Brekkuskoli was established in October 2006 when Mr Isgrove, Mr Bird and Mr Dear visited Akureyri whilst on the Circum Iceland trip during half term. They met with a number of staff, including the Headmaster, to discuss future plans and had a tour of the school which is relatively new in that it is the result of an amalgamation of two of the oldest schools in the town.

Future plans include Video Conferencing and Teacher/Student visits.

Future

New Sixth form centre

A new Sixth form centre building is currently under construction, due to be opened in September 2007. It will house among other things 80 new computers and a Sixth form careers library, with the current common room being transformed into an internet café/conference room. The area adjacent to the new site is also due to undergo renovation in the form of a small 'patio' area comprising flower beds and benches. An archway will also be built connecting the new building to the recently constructed Knowles wing. It is believed one or more walls in the new building will be made of glass, in the name of unusual architecture for its own sake.

ID cards

The school is proposing to issue students with identity cards. Each card is unique, carrying a photo of the pupil and an individual identification code stored in a chip. The cards are multi-purpose, and their current uses include as a form of payment when purchasing food, and as a means of accessing a student's individual profile in the school library. It is widely anticipated within the school that eventually the ID cards will be used to open new electronic doors throughout the site, increasing security within the establishment.

Old Edwardians

Notable ex Five Ways pupils include:

References

52°25′50″N 2°00′05″W / 52.43058°N 2.00143°W / 52.43058; -2.00143

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