The Duke of Edinburgh Award is a fantastic leadership programme which is recognised by both employers and further academic institutions across the world, and as such this prestigious award will support children’s applications into sixth forms and universities, as well as providing a discussion topic during job related interviews.

Students gain many transferable life skills, such as compass and map reading, camping and survival skills, leadership and management, as well as completing charitable voluntary work, and personal sports and interest’s units of study. Mrs. Croxton manages and leads on our DofE programme, supported by Mr. Marshall, who has just completed his higher level Mountain Leadership Instructors Award. Our hope for 2019 is to have a committed group of students who are mature enough to handle the advanced challenges of the Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award.

Moorland School under the guidance of Ms. Suzanne Nolan have competed regionally in a number of debating competitions. The Moorland debating team recently beat a number of large state schools within our region, before being placed in second place behind a far older more experienced team within the final.

The school has previously progressed into national finals are winning their regional debating battles. Debating and public speaking skills are high on our agenda at Moorland School, as these skills build upon social and emotional confidences, which will undoubtedly separate our students during further education, and job related interviews. Watch out for our team in 2018/19 as we will undoubtedly once again win a regional competition, which will hopefully provide the children with another opportunity to compete at a national level. Moorland School is a very unusual school as we strive to compete, whilst always aiming to win. The culture within our society is to be ashamed of wanting to win, with a significant emphasis being placed on not having a 1st, 2nd and 3rd placement.

Unfortunately, life is all about competing, striving and winning, we win everyday that we strive to accomplish our own personal goals in whatever that maybe. A good illustration of this would be a lower ability Mathematics Student, who is predicted a grade score of 3, (D grade at GCSE), who works tirelessly hard and achieves a grade score of 5, (C grade at GCSE). Surely this should be celebrated with far more vigor than an academic gifted student who was predicted and achieved a grade score of 8, (A grade at GCSE)? Moorland School compete within many regional and national based competitions throughout the year such as Rotary and other locally based debating competitions; Johnson Matthey Science Competition ‘CATALYST’; Regional Mathematics and Art Challenges and within drama and singing based competitions held at the local Grand and elsewhere. Naturally the school also competes within a varied range of sporting competitions, please check under the relevant sections to learn more.

Mr. Charlie Jackson, is the school’s full-time Academy Manager, and he is also employed by Manchester City as their Technical Development Coach.

Mr. Jackson has again this year led the school team to become Regional and English Champions. Indeed, the U14 Squad had an emphatic win at the Madejski Stadium in Reading winning 5 – 0 during the U14 Boys English Schools’ FA (ESFA) Playstation Schools’ Cup.

The ESFA is the largest youth cup school’s competition within the UK, and it is unimaginable that a small school like ours could even reach the semi-finals, let alone win the competition. Please view the match here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdQbV8bSWY4

In this academic year we have seen numerous players sign professional academy football contracts with Accrington Stanley, Burnley and Blackburn Rovers Football Clubs, along with numerous trials at clubs such as Manchester City FC.

In addition, Mr. Martin Jones and his colleague Mr. Danny Finch run the Level 3 BTEC Award, which is a full-time post 16 course, which is made up of 21 units covering topics such as Sports Science. The BTEC Level 3 course is designed to follow a football related pathway, as equivalent to 3 A-Levels.

This is the first year of graduation and the majority of our students completed the award to Distinction Level, which has seen some students progressing onto Loughborough, London and American universities.  

The teachers at Moorland School organise a vast range of field trips particularly to support the interests within their subject areas of RE, Geography, History and the Sciences, and termly trips to theme parks, museums and zoos are also scheduled throughout the year.

Staff have also arranged residential trips to France, Barcelona as well as outward bound camps, and camping expeditions in the support of the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

The school has also organised Military Days, paintballing, Lazer Quest and charitable events such as sponsored walks, Bon Fire Nights, Christmas and Summer Fairs etc.……