Belper School is an established, successful and over-subscribed 11-18 school for students of all abilities; it serves the town of Belper and its surrounding areas. It has been a Technology College since 1994.The School works hard in creating the potential for success for all its students. Expectations are high and our good public examination results are a testament to this. The school achieves its success by a combination of strong support for every student, a clear focus on high quality teaching leading to effective learning and open communication between school and home. It has consistently high results and strong sense of community, as well as improved resources and facilities.

History

The school was created in 1973 from an amalgamation of an existing grammar school and two secondary modern schools. It was originally a 13-18 high school and took shape in a barely complete largely open-plan new building with the combined staffs of the three schools and a charismatic, innovative headteacher: the result was an exciting but difficult first few years.

In 1986, the school merged with its two feeder middle schools to become Belper School, an 11-18 school based on two sites, later reduced to one. In 1994 it became one of the first group of Technology Colleges and remains so today. Support from Thorntons and other local firms has helped the school remodel most of its accommodation to suit an 11-18 school population and the demands of specialist school status. It continues to expand in numbers and a new sixth form block and laboratories were added in 2002.

Relationships
In putting teaching and learning first we rely on establishing positive and effective relationships between staff and students that will work well on a day-to-day basis. Visitors to the school often comment very favourably on the open and constructive learning partnership which operates between staff and students. Indeed most of the staff choose for the students to address them by their first name.

Behaviour
This is a very orderly school. Good behaviour is the norm because we expect our students to show care, concern and respect for one another and for all who work in the school or who are visiting us. We expect the same care to be shown to the school environment. We encourage self-reliance and allow students access to most parts of the building during social time such as breaks and lunchtime. Whilst preferring to work with our students and their parents in a supportive way to encourage good behaviour, there are times when deterrents are necessary and we use extra work, detention and similar sanctions on these occasions.

School Uniform
There is no school uniform although we do operate a dress code which asks that students are dressed sensibly and appropriately for the variety of activities that they are likely to encounter during the school day. We reserve the right to ask parents not to send their son or daughter in clothing that we feel is unacceptable.

Tutor Groups
Students are taught in their all-ability tutor groups for almost all their lessons in Years 7-9. In Years 10 and 11 option choices and GCSE arrangements mean that grouping by ability also operates.