On 9 December 2009 the Specialist Schools Unit and National Strategies organised a conference in Manchester about the new role of SIPs in the re-designation of specialist schools. Videos links of the keynote speeches are available on the Teachernet site.
What are Specialist Schools?
The Specialist Schools Programme (SSP) helps schools, in partnership with private sector sponsors and supported by additional Government funding, to establish distinctive identities through their chosen specialisms and achieve their targets to raise standards. Specialist schools aim to develop centres of curriculum excellence which are catalysts for accelerated whole school improvement by making a step change in the way they develop educational provision and raise standards for all students.
Any maintained secondary school and any maintained or non-maintained special school in England can apply for specialist status in one of ten curriculum specialisms: arts, business & enterprise, engineering, humanities, languages, mathematics & computing, music, science, sports and technology.
Special schools can, alternatively, apply for an SEN specialism in one of the four areas of the SEN code of practice. Mainstream secondary schools can apply for an SEN specialism once they have achieved high performing specialist school status.
A list of all 3068 specialist schools (Excel 2 MB), including High Performing Specialist Schools (HPSS) and SEN schools in the programme is now available.
