Birches Head High School - Birches Head High School

Birches Head High School is proud of its facilities. Built originally in the 1960s, as ‘The Birches’ the school grew in size and when the building could no longer accommodate all the students wishing to attend, the school took over part of the Archbishop McIntyre building adjacent to The Birches. Once Archbishop McIntyre School vacated the site to new premises in the late 1970s, The Birches took over the entire site and became Birches Head High School. The school then operated as a split site school until Phase 1 of the school rebuilding programme was completed in April 2005. The move to a single site was completed in August 2005 into temporary accommodation until Phase 2 of the rebuild was completed in July 2007 under the BSF programme. A final building phase (Phase 3) is due to begin in April 2011 for completion in August 2012.

Phase 1 provided the school with a suite of light and airy rooms over 3 floors with great views which are currently used for ICT, English and Maths. The whole school has wireless access to the school network and In addition, Phase 1 has 4 purpose built ICT rooms.

The school is zoned into four areas with each zone named after the school’s core values of Respect, Inspire, Challenge, Honesty. The Inspire zone is an extension of the phase 1 building and contains a media room, a music room, hall and drama studio. The media room has a suite of Apple Mac computers and has direct access to a recording studio and 3 practice rooms which are shared with music. Our hall has a movable wall enabling us to extend into our drama studio and the retractable tiered seating completes a wonderful facility to accommodate all types of performances. Easy access to toilets and changing facilities within the Inspire zone means that the Inspire forms a self contained block and can accommodate an audience of 350 comfortably. The Inspire block is currently hired on one evening a week by the Jonathan Wilkes Dance and Drama Academy.

The phase 3 construction will enable the science department to move out of their current accommodation in the original part of the building into purpose built, state of the art accommodation. Under this phase the kitchen moves to the phase 2 building and the current kitchen and dining room form part of the new science block. The current science block will then be refurbished to accommodate a purpose built Special Educational Needs and pastoral support department. Phase 3 will also provide a purpose built Community Room with access to toilet and kitchen facilities. The room will be available for hire both during and outside the school day as a meeting room.

Externally the school grounds are extensive having a number of full size and smaller pitches available for hire and the school also has a sports hall of 32metres x 15.25metres which can be divided into 2 smaller spaces via a dividing net. The sports hall also has access to changing facilities.