Teacher Training Programme - Physics

The School’s History

Founded in 1710, Lady Eleanor Holles School (LEH) is one of the oldest and most prestigious academic girls’ schools in the country. Originally situated in Cripplegate in the City of London, the School moved in 1937 to purpose-built accommodation on its current 24-acre site in Hampton, Middlesex. It offers pupils not only an outstanding academic education, excellence in sport and in the creative and performing arts, but also many opportunities to enjoy a superb range of extra-curricular activities.

The School is a thriving and vigorous community of approximately 1000 pupils aged 7 – 18, including some 200 Sixth Formers, and 192 Junior School pupils.

The Site

The School’s extensive, 24 acre green site, including gardens, courts and playing fields, provides a spacious and attractive environment for work and play. It also enables us continually to seek to improve the facilities and thus the opportunities on offer to the pupils. Most recently, our Gateway Building has been developed to provide state-of-the-art facilities for Computing, Product Design and Modern Languages, whilst sports facilities have been further enhanced with a refurbished swimming pool, ergo room and activities studio. Our Arts Centre, completed in 2012, offers impressive space for teaching Music, Art and Drama. Central to this is a stunning theatre that offers a flexible performing, meeting and lecture space. Other additions have included a Learning Resources Centre, Sports Hall, an impressive Sixth Form Library and recently extended Sixth Form Common Rooms, the Q building with new classrooms for Maths and English, and additional Science Laboratories. The School also has a nearby modern Thames-side Boathouse.

The Junior School is housed in an elegant, refurbished building adjacent to the main school, providing a secure and stimulating space for girls aged 7 to 11, the majority of whom proceed to the Senior School.

Next door is Hampton School, a successful independent boys’ school with which we share a students’ coach service and the aforementioned boathouse. Opportunities are taken for joint initiatives in many areas: music and drama, foreign language trips and exchanges, CCF, careers advice and Sixth form lectures and leadership training.

School Ethos

Beyond the high academic standards for which LEH is nationally renowned, there is a great deal which makes LEH an outstanding school for both students and staff. The working environment is purposeful and productive, and LEH pupils are known for their intellectual curiosity and generosity of spirit. They are deeply involved in the wider local community and enjoy lively participation in a huge number and variety of extracurricular clubs and societies. The School takes great pride in ensuring that all pupils are respected as individuals and that their personal development is fully realised. They work hard and play hard, and are extraordinarily energetic and enthusiastic.

Teaching and support staff commit time and energy to the School with generosity. There is a strong collegiality and all take real pride in LEH, its history and the achievements of the pupils.

Academic Achievements

LEH is consistently among the top performing schools in the country with a longstanding record of academic excellence. Details of recent public examination results can be viewed on the School’s website; you will not be surprised to learn that we send students to all the UK’s top universities (including Oxford or Cambridge annually), as well as to the USA and other countries.

Music, Drama, Art and Sport

LEH is justifiably proud of its Music Department which sustains extraordinarily high standards in performance as well as in academic study. As well as the prestigious LEH Symphony Orchestra, there are Junior, Senior, and Chamber Choirs, String Orchestra, and numerous other groups including Wind Band, Jazz Band, Saxophone Group, Brass Group, a Rock Band and many Chamber Ensembles.

The theatre provides the perfect showcase for the Drama Department’s rich, varied and rapidly expanding extra-curricular programme. Amongst the highlight of the Arts Calendar is the annual musical co-produced with our neighbours at Hampton School. Recent shows include Legally Blonde and Little Shop of Horrors. Other events include Sixth Form plays, Lower school productions, workshops, theatre company visits, plus an increasingly specialised technical theatre training programme.

The bright, airy Art Department enjoys northern light, full height windows opening onto broad balconies with expansive views over the site. The department includes large studios with specialist facilities for ceramics, life-drawing and other media.

LEH is renowned for its sporting successes and the Sporting Roll of Honour for National and International Representatives often features 15 or more students, covering sports as diverse as acrobatics, skiing, kayaking, lacrosse, rowing and cross country. The School’s extensive grounds enable a wide variety of sports to be played on site: four lacrosse pitches, eight floodlit netball/tennis courts, six grass tennis courts, Sports Hall, and an indoor Swimming Pool. At Sunbury, the Millennium Boat House (owned jointly with Hampton School) provides the perfect location for the highly successful LEH Boat Club.

Extra-Curricular Activities

A key strength of the school is the range and diversity of its flourishing extra-curricular provision. Some 120 clubs run each week, ranging from Music, Drama and PE to Outward Bound and subject clubs, all aiming further to stimulate and inculcate a love of learning outside the classroom.

Sixth Formers lead a number of groups which focus on various political, environmental and ethical issues, including ‘Model United Nations’, ‘Amnesty’ and ‘Make Poverty History’. Our partnership with the Eden Project is seeing the girls develop a miniature nature reserve in the school grounds. Girls are encouraged to take the initiative to form their own clubs, with a Medic Group, Law Society, and Book Club formed in the recent past.

The school has developed a wide range of activities to ensure that students are aware of their social responsibilities, including Service Volunteers which works with disadvantaged children and the elderly. The girls run numerous activities in local primary schools, including language and drama clubs, and have developed a pioneering peer mentoring scheme with Hampton Community College.

Pupils are strongly encouraged to participate in extra-curricular activities and all staff are expected to contribute towards, and further enhance, the school’s provision.

Staff Benefits

LEH is a vibrant, friendly and indeed unique place to work and we hope that you will want to join us. The school offers an attractive range of benefits as outlined below:

• The school offers the Teachers' Pension Scheme for teaching staff and membership of LEH Group Pension Scheme (with life assurance) for non-teaching staff
• Free lunches, tea and coffee
• Generous occupational sick pay scheme
• 'Care First' Employee Assistance Programme
• Occupational Health Service
• 24 acre site with superb facilities
• Staff Social Committee
• Learning and development opportunities, including financial support for postgraduate study
• Christmas closure
• Childcare voucher scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Free car parking on site
• Library facilities open to all
• Use of 25-metre swimming pool at specified times
• Staff receive free or reduced price tickets to attend the excellent school drama and music productions
• School fee reductions for LEH; the school also has an arrangement for fee reduction at Hampton Boys' School
• The school offers a rent or mortgage allowance subsidy for new permanent teaching staff appointed on the first or second point of the LEH pay scale. Details are available from the HR Dept.

School Prospectus

Please click on this link to view the school prospectus - https://www.lehs.org.uk/admissions/prospectus

Location

The school is located in the outer suburbs of south-west London, and is easily accessible from the city, from Berkshire and Surrey and beyond. It is within a short distance of a number of major routes. These include the M25, M3 and M4 motorways, and also the A3, A4 and A316. The Senior School is situated in Hanworth Road in Hampton, next door to Hampton School for Boys. The Junior School is based in Burlington House, on the Uxbridge Road away from the main school but on the same site. There is free car parking available on site. Public transport options include two bus routes which operate along the Hanworth Road, the R70 from the Richmond area and 111 which runs from Kingston via Hanworth and Hounslow. In addition the 285 operates along the Uxbridge Road. The nearest railway station is Hampton, which is connected to LEH by the 111 bus or is 15 minutes’ walk. Trains operate at half hourly intervals to London Waterloo and take 45 minutes. Faster and more frequent trains are available from Feltham, Teddington, and Richmond stations.