Bow School

Bow School is a secondary school and sixth form for boys and girls, located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, England. It has a roll of about 600 students and increasing. In September 2014 the school moved from the old site off Fairfield Road, Bow to a new site 1 mile to the south-east by Bow Locks, in a brand new building designed by van Heyningen and Haward Architects.^[1] The school started accepting girls in the new school building, along with the move, into Year 7 and the numbers will grow so that in 5 years time, the school will have all its year groups mixed sex.^[2]

Subjects

Bow teaches a number of subjects stretched across a seven period day and a six period day on Friday.

The subjects taught now are: English, Maths, Science, Design and Technology (D.T.: Graphic Products, Resistant Materials), Art & Design, Modern Foreign Languages (French, Bengali), Religious Studies, Physical Education, History, Geography, Information Technology, Skills, Preparation For Adulthood, Music, Statistics, Construction, Drama, Further Maths (at GCSE)

Partnerships

Creative Partnerships

Creative Partnerships provides school children across England with the opportunity to develop creativity in learning and to take part in cultural activities of the highest quality. It is not a funding body but aims to establish genuine collaborative partnerships to enable the development of projects that reflect the interests, specialisms and shared vision of those involved.

As representatives of the Creative Partnerships London East Youth Forum, three Bow School students were involved in a project last year at the official launch of the London 2012 Olympic bid when they interviewed Jude Kelly OBE about her role leading on the cultural focus of the bid. The article was published in ‘Snapshots’, London East’s regular newsletter.

Business Mentoring

Funded by Merrill Lynch Bank, in partnership with Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnership, this project is designed to enhance the range of enterprise and entrepreneurship opportunities on offer to Bow School students. Students in Years 8 and 9 participate in a range of activities, many of them delivered at Merrill Lynch’s HQ. Bank staff also visit the school to deliver lessons on starting your own business, managing finances and developing a company ethos.

Merrill Lynch is funding a training course for two Bow School staff to become Enterprise Teachers. This will extend the range of opportunities open to Bow School students outside of school hours.

Reading and Number Partners

When the London Borough of Tower Hamlets’ Education Business Partnership was seeking a venue to launch its Future Horizons programme, NM Rothschild was quick to step forward with the offer of its offices. Bow Schools' relationship with the Bank goes back four years when volunteers from the firm began providing literacy support, as Reading Partners, at Bow School.

Like so many business/school partnerships, the association has grown to encompass much more as Nuria Ramos, Bow’s Reading Partner scheme co-ordinator claims: "Students say they have improved so much with their reading skills. They feel very privileged to have a special relationship with an adult different from their family members. The relationships created are excellent and for Christmas, they organised a party and lovely presents for the boys." A Number Partner scheme followed a year later and participants in both enjoy an end of term visit to the Bank where a reading and number session takes place.

Transatlantic School Innovation Alliance

Education organisations in the United States and the Department for Education and Skills in England have formed a partnership designed to develop a network of schools in London and New York City.

The goal is to incorporate the best thinking about urban education systems to create demonstrably better outcomes for students, parents and communities, according to Robert Hughes, the President of New Visions for Public Schools, a New York City-based education organisation that is co-directing the Alliance in the United States, along with the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University and Mike Gibbons, Lead Director for the Innovation Unit funded by the Department for Education and Skills in London. “Schools in the United States and the United Kingdom share common problems. They also each have ideas about what works to help urban children succeed,” Hughes said. “By bringing people together from both countries, we can create a transatlantic ‘school system’ that can do what each country, separately, might not be able to do.”

In its initial phase, the Transatlantic School Innovation Alliance (TSIA) has linked two schools: Marble Hill School for International Studies in the Bronx, New York, and Bow School in Tower Hamlets, London. Teachers from the two schools have been jointly planning and co-creating a common scheme of work and lessons for students. The first lesson took place last week; the teachers plan additional lessons throughout the year.

Sixth form

The school operates a sixth form provision in consortium with Langdon Park School, St Paul's Way Trust School and Stepney Green Maths, Computing & Science College. The sixth form consortium is known as Sixth Form East. Head of sixth form at bow school is Nadia Dellagana.^[3]

Notable former pupils

• Ashley Cole, defender for AS Roma
• Lutfur Rahman, first directly elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets
• Wiley, grime music rapper

References

External links

• Bow School online, the official site.
• Website of Bow area by the students
• Creative Partnership Project
• TSIA is supported by the Annenberg Foundation
• The MLEE Programme