A ceremony will be held at the school on the 16th July to dedicate the Drama Studio to Alex Curtis. Drama Studio 1 will be renamed: 'The Alex Curtis Drama Studio' in honour of the extraordinary impact Alex made on all of us at Nicholas Breakspear School.

26 September 2005 NEW

A new partnership with a school in the Holy land

Nicholas Breakspear school is forming a partnership with a school in the Holy land: the Mars Elias Education centre. It is unique in the world, in that the same establishment caters for kindergarten children and takes them all the way through to University level. It is a truly multi cultural school with Muslim, Christian and Jewish children and staff. It has recently merged with a Jewish school. To mark this auspicious occasion the Headteacher of the school, Abuna Chacour, travelled 8,000 miles to be the guest of honour at NBS's Presentation evening this week.

10 September 2005

New Headteacher at the school

At first glance there is little similarity between Inner-London's most notorious secondary school and leafy environs of St Albans. But new head of Nicholas Breakspear School, Phil Jakszta, can see a thread which runs through both - and he plans to nurture it at the city's Catholic secondary school in the same way that he did while he was head at St George's in Maida Vale, the scene of the horrific murder of head Philip Lawrence in December 2995. Phil, age 47, took over at St George's in September 2001 straight after 'superhead' Lady Marie Stubbs, who is credited with turning the school around. It still attracted its fair share of headlines but was a far different school from the one she had inherited. He has always been particularly interested in school development - and he was head of a school which at one time looked as though it had no future - so he was determined to build on the pride in St George's which Lady Stubbs had so successfully instilled. Both ambitions are just as pertinent at his new school which is as great a challenge to him but for different reasons. For a start Nicholas Breakspear has a sixth form which St George's didn,t and in terms of pupil numbers it is far bigger. But what really swung it for Phil, who took over the headship earlier this month, is that Nicholas Breakspear is a specialist sports school - and Phil is a sportsman through and through. A keen cyclist and mountaineer, his subject is sport and science and be believes it is vital for heads to keep up their teaching skills in the classroom - or on the sports field. To that end he was out in the sunshine playing cricket with the sixth formers last week and is already enthusing about Nicholas Breakspear's very good sports teams and its talented youngsters. He can see numerous benefits from its chosen speciality in a school which has large playing fields and lends itself to sport. He explained: "It gives youngsters more opportunity to experience a range of sports and different levels of competition across the school in terms of curriculum development and leadership courses". But his remit as head goes far wider than sport and he has already authorised major spending on ICT. He said: "I come from the inner city where there was a lot of money available for ICT and I know the positive effect that we can have on the curriculum. By Christmas we will have spent a substantial amount of money to bring Nicholas Breakspear up to spec." That's not all - Phil is determined to push the school to new heights. "Rapid and sustainable development has been the theme of my headships," he added. "The school has got a very good ethos and that goes with a very distinct Catholic nature. There is a very strong sense of community and a sense of positive ownership." He wants to build on all those attributes and particularly important in his view is optimising results at GCSE. He firmly believes that good results at GCSE set up pupils for the future and enhance their life chances. "That is what drives me," he said. "If we turn up with 96 per cent success rate that would be brilliant but if it is 76 or 70 per cent and every child has got the best out their talents, I would be delighted." Phil also wants to expand the curriculum for the 200-strong sixth form and sees development as the key to his role in the school. "My job is very much about vision and the future and the other thing I want to work on is to agree and develop with stakeholders about where we want Nicholas Breakspear to be in five to seven years time." He added: "I always believe that schools which are standing still are beginning to die. Schools have to be looking to what is important to them in order to move on and standing still is not good enough." In the meantime the married father of two who travels in each day from Harrow is delighted to be at Nicholas Breakspear where he has received a warm welcome from students and staff alike. He succeeds Jeremy White who had to leave the school because of his wife's illness. Phil has already put his open-door policy to the test and students have called into his office to talk to him about issues which concern them. And he has no doubt where his vision will take the school. "I want to make it the Catholic comprehensive choice for all parents," he said.

17 March 2005