The Ballard/Highcliffe Schools' Link

Over the past decade Ballard School and Highcliffe School have been forging an independent/state partnership.  Highcliffe is an 11-18 Foundation School and Specialist College and is located in the town of Highcliffe about 15 minutes drive from Ballard.  Highcliffe Specialisms are Languages, Maths/Science and the provision for Gifted and Talented students. The school has a similar ethos and ‘feel’ to ours in many respects.  Several of our Ballard leavers at Year 11 will go on to Highcliffe for their Sixth Form studies and there is a very close relationship between their senior staff and ours.

The following are examples of our current Link:-

• Modern Foreign Languages
• Shared revision clinics
• Shared French Exchanges
• Professional development for MFL staff
• Gifted and Talented
• Our common Lecture Series in the Spring term (hosted at Ballard Performing Arts Centre)
• Consideration of shared residential courses
• Sports
• Highcliffe Sports Elite Sixth Form students help with our younger pupils
• Mutual fixtures
• Expressive Arts
• Combined concert for students taking GCSE Expressive Art
• Drama master classes at Years 8 & 9 given by Highcliffe’s Head of Drama
• Exchange of staff judges for Talent shows.
• Careers
• Ballard pupils attend the Highcliffe Careers’ convention annually.
• Sharing of courses, most recently on learning styles
• Design Technology/Art
• Ballard pupils have had access to the Highcliffe state of the art Da Vinci Centre
• Sixth Form
• Some initial discussion of sharing Sixth Form students and developing some common Sixth Form work / provisions.

In conclusion, we affirm at Ballard the positive nature of this relationship and endorse the Highcliffe vision statement:
“I believe in using what you have, instead of mourning for that which you do not. In Thirty years time, I want to be able to look back at my youth and know that I used my talents fully, that I wasted nothing”