Welcome from the Headteacher

Welcome to Roding Valley High School. I am incredibly proud to be responsible for the leadership of this great school.  The school was inspected by Ofsted in September 2022 and to quote the Lead Inspector ‘This is a very good school with an outstanding Sixth Form’. If you would like to take a virtual tour through the school and meet some key staff, please click here.

Our Sixth Form, established in 2015, has continued to go from strength to strength and despite the challenges, we were able to celebrate incredible success at A Level; allowing students to pursue their chosen University courses, Higher Level Apprenticeships, other education or employment routes. Many students secure places at Russell Group universities and due to the breadth of opportunity are choosing to study a diverse range of subjects. Many high achieving students now choose the alternative route of Higher Level Apprenticeships and with our excellent careers guidance are securing places with top employers such as Hill Group, Schroders, Aon and KPMG. Please use this link to read our press release to see our amazing students and their destinations. We are also now in partnership with Chelsea Football Club to extend the opportunities for our students. Please review our Sixth Form promotional video for more information here. 

Not only have we improved our results but in recent years we have invested in the school’s outstanding facilities. The school has a lovely mixture of traditional, new build and ultra modern. In 2018, the site was vastly improved by the Brook Building which includes a state of the art sixth form centre and computer suite. Our sports facilities were already outstanding, but further enhanced by a second FIFA standard AstroTurf. This year, 2021, we have totally refurbished our nine science laboratories and created dedicated A level science facilities and created an additional Drama space and new apple Music Studio. I remain committed to the Arts and the offer of a broad curriculum, investing in new musical instruments for our students to enjoy.

Our ethos is to educate the whole child, regardless of social and ethnic background; we value academic performance and the building of personal character and cultural capital in equal measure. Our SEND faculty is excellent and both our STEM & Challenge and Enrichment programmes inspire the students in our school.

Visitors always comment on the warm and welcoming atmosphere, the politeness of our students and how highly they speak of their school – this is testament to the school’s success, and its safe, caring and inclusive culture. We take safeguarding very seriously and recognise that everyone in the school community has a role to play in keeping children safe.

At Roding Valley High School a student can expect high levels of support, encouragement and high-quality teaching. Our innovative approach to teaching and learning, data, assessment and personal development ensures that more students than ever are achieving high levels of academic success and well rounded, young people who have high aspirations, show respect for others, and endeavour to become the very best that they can be.

The school has developed its own successful, bespoke Teaching and Learning framework: ACED. Every teacher is expected to follow our ACED Mastery framework which we believe creates outstanding outcomes for our learners and fully support our teachers both in the classroom and in their career progression. It has been our relentless focus on teaching and learning,ACED that has supported the significant improvements in outcomes.We believe that if learning is to be outstanding, learners need to feel valued and motivated and the essential ingredients of learning must be ACED

Our curriculum is planned to aid the progression of knowledge and skills in each subject to ensure that our students are equipped with the tools to be successful at every stage of their 7-year school journey; including GCSE, A-Level and beyond. We offer a full complement of subjects through Key Stage 3 which will equip students with the skills to make informed GCSE choices and into post 16. Students study a broad range of subjects until they focus on their chosen GCSE subjects from Year 10. Our Sixth Form is now established and offers a wide range of A-Level and vocational courses, along with a newly formed partnership with Chelsea Football Club . There is a serious work ethic at Roding Valley High School, with the vast majority of students moving onto top Russell Group universities or securing higher-level apprenticeships. They receive high-quality support and guidance from our in-school careers advisor and specialist Sixth Form team.

We value everyone for their individuality and the unique talent that they bring to our school. Last year, we worked with the Prosperity Project with an aim to help us bring even greater diversity to our curriculum, we celebrate students with other languages and support their transition as we immerse them in English. In 2019, Igor who had joined us in Year 10, with no grasp of the English Language went onto to achieve a place at Cambridge. I am very proud of the teachers; they are all dedicated educators of their subjects but they also work hard to foster good relations with students. Our pastoral systems are excellent; we nurture, reward and sanction as appropriate. We have also enhanced our Personal Development Programme. This is a progressive curriculum interwoven into the school. The school is enhanced by our House System, which supports healthy competition, encourages student voice and collaboration across the age ranges. We use student leadership to support our highly effective transition programme at both Year 7 and Year 12. Our specially trained ‘YES’ Prefects and our in lesson Sixth Form mentors help support where needed. This year the school ran a summer school which proved to be an excellent support for the students transitioning from primary to secondary.

As well as academic success, we are also proud of the wide range of extra-curricular clubs and activities offered to our students. We have won many sporting titles both locally, regionally and nationally. Our school productions are fabulous and bring together students from all year groups. We run the successful Duke of Edinburgh award scheme and there is also a wide range of trips and visits that allow our students to gain skills and experiences beyond the classroom. Trips and visits include New York, Berlin, Ypres Battlefields, Barcelona and Madrid football tours, Disneyland Paris, Maths trip and PGL style activity trips. It will be wonderful to be able to take students on trips again, but we also plan to further utilise Google Tools such as ‘Google Arts & Culture’, to bring enrichment and opportunity ‘for all’ to the classroom via our Digital Strategy.

Our students attend many conferences including the Yes Conference and subject-specific exam support conferences. These opportunities were thwarted by the pandemic but the school is committed to rejuvenating all enrichment opportunities and more, offered by the school. The English faculty regularly organise West End theatre trips, taking advantage of our location, a short train trip to London. However, we have just had a theatre company come into school and deliver the exciting shows directly to our students: Year 8, Introduction to Shakespeare, Year 9, Romeo and Juliet and Year 10, bring their GCSE text  to life, An Inspector Calls. We run a full and exciting Challenge and Enrichment  Programme which includes access to the student magazine – ‘Exposed’, debating competitions, extended projects, university visits and academic lectures. Roding Valley High School has a number of accolades to be proud of. We won the National Debating Competition in 2019, a title won against 1000 schools nationwide. We have also won the Epping Forest Debating competition hosted by Dame Eleanor Laing, MP, more times than any other participating school. We also hosted the West Essex Regional Final of the Jack Petchey ‘Speak Out’ Challenge 2019; from 16 schools our Year 9’s secured both 1st and 3rd place. Our students are also regular participants and winners in local and regional Math’s challenges. Our sporting achievements are vast with wide participation. Please follow the RVHS PE twitter  You can read more about a year in the life of Roding Valley High School, please visit here.

We really value communication with all stakeholders in the school community and establish good relationships with parents and carers. Please do take some time to read our RVHS Bulletins, celebrating student achievement and sharing essential key information and the support offered from our How to help your child guide.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, and I very much hope to welcome you to our school community very soon.

Sharon Jenner
Headteacher