A brief history of Houstone School
Houstone School is a state school to open in 2022, set up by Advantage Schools, a school trust that runs schools in Bedford and Central Bedfordshire.
The founders are determined to make a positive difference to the educational landscape in Houghton Regis and the surrounding areas.
Like all state schools in the area, Houstone School is open to all pupils regardless of income or ability. We are regulated and inspected by Ofsted, enter our pupils for GCSEs, and have our exam results published in league tables.
So just like all other schools, the performance of Houstone School is closely monitored to assure parents that their children are being provided with a high standard of education.
But there are some key differences that we believe make Houstone School so distinctive. We’ve heard for some time that concerned parents and education professionals in the local community campaigned for something new and better for families in Houghton Regis.
Some parents that we have spoken to said they wanted their children to experience a better education, with very strong standards of behaviour, a different approach to pupils with additional needs that believes that they can meet the heights of their peers, and aspects like longer school days that fit in with modern family life, alongside a real commitment to getting the curriculum, teaching and learning right.
We are going to make Houstone School that school – founded by our school trust, and shaped by local people.
Our CEO and Director of Education send their children to schools in our trust, and our maxim – that if it is not good enough for our own children, it is not good enough, is shared by all staff members and will be shared by our founding Principal.
Houstone School, shaped by the families and the educational teams who design it, has freedom to direct resources where they are most needed, and to ensure that our curriculum is truly aspirational.
At our existing schools, we regularly receive visitors from all over the country. Prior to the pandemic, over 150 school leaders visited our secondary free school established in 2012 to see what makes it unique.
We share everything and will continue to share everything at Houstone School and Advantage Schools, and we ask two things of our visitors:
We believe that our combination of firm discipline, very high expectations, an academic knowledge-based curriculum, and a humble approach to feedback means that we can go on to be one of the highest-achieving schools in the country. We really do want to be a ‘grammar school for all’.
Our ambition is that every single pupil will be able to attend university, and most will attend the most selective universities. We are ambitious to be the best school in the country.
In time, we will be recruiting school staff, governors (including local people who know the community very well), and in September and October we will be running an admissions process for pupils in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10.
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