Our Vision

At Houstone School our ambition is to establish a school that offers excellence in terms of a world class education and pupil personal development. The school will be a beacon school, both locally and nationally, achieving the highest outcomes and enabling our pupils to make unrivalled progress.  We believe the local community and families deserve such a school and we are committed to realising our goals, working closely with the community to make our aims a reality. Our focus on an academic curriculum for all which includes, in time, a sixth form, will add diversity of provision and parental choice to the Dunstable cluster and particularly to Houghton Regis.

Our work is subject to “the Sophie test” – named after the daughter of the founder of Advantage Schools -which means , simply,  “if it isn’t good enough for our own children, it isn’t good enough.”

Our organisation lives these values and our school will embody them.

Aspiration – we aspire for our pupils to have the best opportunities in their lives and achieve extraordinary things given the circumstances that we will provide

Respect – we believe that tolerance, understanding and knowledge are underpinned by respect for others and their achievements. We cultivate this in our pupils and our approach to education and collaboration.

Honesty – we believe that this value above all communicates our approach to be transparent, open and clear in what we are doing and our achievements – of our pupils and our school as a whole.

We expect every individual at Houstone to:

1. Commit to very high expectations of our pupils, including pupil outcomes, via a curricular focus

We believe in a broad, balanced, academic curriculum. A curriculum is only a curriculum if it is learnt, and while we will not be led by outcomes, we know that a great curriculum will mean that ‘the score takes care of itself’. (Bill Walsh)

2. Have leaders who ‘sweat the small stuff’. Our leaders do not pass the buck and ensure that learning is desirable, demanded and achievable in our schools

Behaviour at Houstone is managed by systems that all follow and that leaders prioritise. Leaders are highly visible and hence know their staff and pupils. Leaders look after their staff and prioritise their wellbeing.

3. Employ people that do their job, and do it well

We do not tolerate underperformance. We have professional candour and we support our colleagues to get better. We value colleagues who marry efficiency and quality in all they do.

The special features of our school includes:

• a longer school day (08:25 – 16:00);
• a disciplined “can-do” culture to allow every pupil to feel safe and cared for;
• an intensive focus on the basics of maths and English;
• an academic knowledge-based curriculum for all pupils;
• a comprehensive timetable of enrichment opportunities for all pupils, built into the school day;
• all pupils taught a musical instrument from Year 7;
• additional support for pupils with lower attendance; and
• creating and enacting the highest expectations for all by preparing every single pupil, from day one, to be able to attend a good university.