Specialist Status
What is Specialist Status?
This is when a school submits an application to the DFES to become a Specialist
School in a given area. For St Wilfrid’s, this is Business and Enterprise with
Ethics. We are now a centre of excellence within this area and our three
specialist subjects are Business, Mathematics and ICT. St Wilfrid’s is the only
BE&E School within Crawley and we have to work within and outside the school
community to embed BE&E in order to develop the learning experiences we offer
our students and other groups such as parents and adult learners.
Specialist Status brings with it extra funding that we will spend on the
specialist areas so they can benefit from the latest resources and technologies
in order to raise standards. There are two key strands within the Specialist
Status Action Plan. These are school plans i.e., developing teaching and
learning of BE&E across the school curriculum and the other is the community
plan, whereby we use our BE&E status to raise standards outside the school through
adult education, work other local secondary schools, our feeder primaries and small
businesses.
Our Vision
Our vision is to become the leading provider of Business, Enterprise and Ethics
education in the South East. We seek to develop and work by a set of
ethical principles that will govern our interaction with all stakeholders,
internal and external to the school. This will dovetail with the Catholic ethos
of the school.
Aims for the School
Local businesses help students practice their interview skills
- Use the Specialism of B&E to drive whole school improvement and develop
innovative approaches to teaching and learning;
- Encourage, enrich and develop learning by encouraging Enterprise Education and
business and economic understanding across the school curriculum;
- Provide our students with the skills (including literacy, numeracy and ICT)
needed to progress into employment, self-employment and further/higher
education;
- Extend our vocational provision by offering a true vocational curriculum and a
wide range of work related learning pathways;
- Invest and support the development of leadership skills of all our staff,
including through innovative ways of deploying staff;
- Cultivate a positive attitude toward risk taking and entrepreneurial attitudes;
- To work with our extensive range of community stakeholders to meet their
identified needs and thereby use our B&E specialism to help develop strategies
that lead to wider benefits for the local community.
Working to Achieve Our Aims
PricewaterhouseCoopers congratulate a Sixth Former on successfully completing a business challenge
At St Wilfrid’s we have 6 key Enterprise Skills and Attitudes. These are:
Skills
- Teamwork
- Leadership
- Presentation
- Research
- Problem solving
- Communication
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Attitudes
- Self-reliant
- Dynamic
- Autonomous
- Versatile
- Resourceful
- Committed
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These will be used to create an enterprise culture across the school curriculum
whereby we will have a school of enterprising teachers and enterprising
learners. All subject departments as well as the three Specialist Subjects
embed BE&E into their schemes of work. Students are given the opportunities
to practice, develop and fine tune their Enterprise Skills and Attitudes.
Subject areas are also auditing their current practice to identify areas where
work related learning can also be embedded so that students can develop
vocational skills that inform and prepare them for their working life whether
that is immediately after school or after completing studies within
further/higher education.
Our three specialist subjects (Business, Mathematics and ICT) have been working
tremendously hard to raise standards in their respective areas:
Sixth formers tackle the Stock Market in Enterprise Week
Mathematics has interactive whiteboards and software for
all their classrooms and have integrated BE&E into all their schemes
of work. Financial literacy is a key aim for BE&E and Maths, and we work with local banks and Business Partners to ensure students hve 'real world' examples of the application of their mathematical skills.
- ICT has acquired new resources and have created highly innovative projects. Business Partners regularly attend lessons to support the teachers and students creating their own websites, theatre booking systems and
advertising campaigns.
- Business, Economics and Vocational students are now working closely with local
businesses in an integrated way to bring the subject to life. New resources are
also enabling the subject to be taught in an interactive and dynamic way,
stimulating and encouraging students in their learning.
Business and Enterprise
Community Manager, Holly Myers
Our Business and Enterprise Community Manager, Holly Myers, rolls out our
community plans and develops a “St Wilfrid’s Business Community” in order to
support the curriculum developments within the school. Our plans include:
- Working with other schools to develop B&E, ICT and Mathematics
projects that utilize our specialist experience. These include joint Enterprise days with our partner secondary schools and Enterprise sessions with our feeder primary
schools.
- Auditing the local community's needs and offering adult education classes in business related courses in order to raise
attainment amongst the local adult population;
- Sharing best practice with interested schools in running a successful Business, Enterprise and Community programme.

Make Your Mark business challenge
St Wilfrid's
Regional Finalists 2008.
The photos throughout this section highlight examples of pupils taking part in
enterprise activities.