Table of Contents
At Fairfax we strive to prepare all our students for their future as responsible citizens, willing to make a positive contribution to society with an appreciation of diversity and a respect for British Values and equality. We provide a wide number of rich and varied experiences and opportunities through our curriculum and our co-curriculum to develop talents, interests, and an individual’s cultural capital. All of this is underpinned by our ‘ARKS’ values of Ambition, Respect, Kindness and Safety: ‘The Fairfax Way’. We ensure that our careers and employability provision is worthy of acclaim and our Leadership programme and House system enables our students to engage, inspire and achieve.
We recognise that it is important that our students know how to keep themselves safe and how to care for both their mental and physical wellbeing whilst they also develop personal traits, and virtues that will motivate and guide our students to flourish in their community and in society, with confidence and resilience.
This focus on Personal Development and Character Education are all promoted through our bespoke school offer and is embedded in all aspects of our academy.
On this page, we wish to share a flavour of all that we do at Fairfax to develop our students into the young adults who are ready to take on the world.
Careers
Our Careers Programme is an integral part of personal development at Fairfax for all year groups.
Information about whole school careers, and Sixth Form Careers and Personal Development can be found at these links.
Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education
Our PSHE program runs both within Tutor lessons and within timetabled weekly lessons. Please click here to see an overview of the Lessons.
Throughout the year students have numerous assemblies from visiting speakers and staff that address relevant issues for in some cases the whole school and in others targeted year groups or groups of students.
Fairfax believes strongly in inclusion and recently was awarded the SENDIA Inclusion Award. There are a range of clubs and events that students can take part in weekly/ termly and, of course, our well-established house system.
In the Sixth Form, our students enrol onto our Personal Learning and Development Programme, which gives them full access to all the areas of development they will require to prepare them for post-18 education. Full details of the programme can be found in the sixth form pages for Enrichment and Careers
Our House System
The House system is at the centre of life here at Fairfax. It generates for our students a sense of identity and belonging which helps students to develop leadership skills, loyalty, responsibility and healthy competition.
On admission, students are allocated to one of the four Houses:
- Coventry
- Kenilworth
- Stratford
- Warwick
Each is led by a Head of House who, together with their Assistant Head of House and Tutors, monitor, track and evaluate the whole-school involvement and participation of their students. Students are awarded House points for representing their House in a range of events. Once students reach a set number of House points they are awarded either their Junior, inter, senior or gold colours. For exceptional participation they may be awarded a purple band in KS5. These badges are sewn onto their blazers as shown:
There are a range of House activities that run throughout the year that all of our students can take part in.
Sports Competitions – Students in each year group are encouraged to participate in a wide variety of sports, with House competitions taking place each week.
Our sports are fully inclusive, meaning there is something for everyone. Sports include rugby, football, hockey,basketball, table tennis, softball, rounders, boccia, table cricket, to name but a few.
In addition, there are also two major inter house competition days in the House Swimming Gala and Athletics Day.
Students are awarded 2 points per competition towards their house colours. All events also contribute towards the much sought after House Sports Trophy.
The Arts – The Annual Eisteddfod celebrates creativity across the curriculum.
The Eisteddfod is made up of a variety of events such as Art, Photography, Creative Writing and Baking. The final events of Dance, Drama, Music and Spoken Word take place over two performance evenings in December, which is a fantastic highlight of the Fairfax Calendar.
This is the opportunity for students of all years to come together to support their house. For new students in year 7 and year 12, they get an introduction to what it means to be a member of their house.
Details of our last Eisteddfod can be seen here: THE EISTEDDFOD
Additional Competitions – After listening to student feedback additional inter house competitions have been added such as Chess and Spelling Bee.
As previously mentioned students are awarded House points for participation and once they have received 20, 40, 60, 100 points are awarded with the appropriate badge – insert link to the blazer – or put a picture of the blazer here.
There is simply something for everyone to get involved in within the House system.
Participation
Duke of Edinburgh
Another unique to Fairfax tradition is the Duke of Edinburgh Award.
This has been a staple of character education from the earliest days of Fairfax’s history.
Full details of all three awards can be found on a dedicated page to the DofE, as it is fondly known. We encourage all of our students to take up the challenge it offers, and students who join us from other schools in our sixth form are invited to take the Gold Award, even if they have not done Bronze or Silver in their previous schools.
Charity
They say “charity begins at home”, but here at Fairfax, it begins in the ‘House’.
We encourage our students to think of others and our annual charity events have raised £1000s for a range of charities. The Charities supported are chosen by our students.
Students, and staff, willingly take part in events designed to raise money and have fun doing so.
Charities supported over the past year include:
- Local Food Banks
- Macmillan
- Teenage Cancer Trust
- St Giles Hospice
- Air Ambulance
- Collections for Ukraine
- The Children’s Hospital
Students have also planted trees in our community, completed Litter Picks as well as making a bug Hotel for the local Hospital.
Groups at Fairfax
Equalities.
The Equalities group was formed here at Fairfax 2018 after a groups of students stated that they wanted to raise the profile of all matters of equalities and make a real difference to our school community. Since it started the group have organized a vast range of initiatives and brought about change here at Fairfax such as:
- Reviewing the History and English curriculum and making changes
- Introduced a series of events to celebrate Black History month
- Introduced a series of house competitions to raise the profile of LGBTQ+, Tolerance, mental health awareness.
- Held a series of awareness weeks.
- Run the School’s first Culture day.
- Developed further education regarding different beliefs.
We meet weekly to discuss in an open forum the things that matter to us. This gives us a voice and we enjoy working together to make a difference.
Pride Group
The Pride Group meet regularly in a supportive environment to discuss topics relevant to us. We follow a program called Just like Us as well as look at organising events within school. Sixth formers are trained to run the groups along with teachers here at Fairfax.
This page gives you a flavour of all that is on offer for our students to support their personal development as they progress through our school.
Please follow us on Facebook and ‘X’ as well as checking out our Good News Pages throughout the year.
