About our school
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The Thomas Adams School was established in 1976 on a 30 acre campus as a co-educational community school catering for all students in Wem and the surrounding areas. It was formed by the amalgamation of local schools dating back to 1650 when Sir Thomas Adams, Bt, founded the ‘Free School of Wem’.
The School is famous for its Music and Drama and we have specialist Centres for both these subjects with full performance facilities. We also have a joint-use sports centre, and the extensive fields have extra sports facilities including tennis courts, artificial cricket wicket, basketball courts, hard surface play areas and many pitches for team games.
The whole campus is situated on the edge of Wem and is very attractive and pleasant for both staff and students. Wem itself is a small market town, but c. 60% of our students come to school on buses from the extensive rural area that surrounds Wem.
The intake is above national average in ability but we are still very proud to be a comprehensive school in ethos and belief, and we aim to help all students of all abilities fulfil their potential. We currently have c 1300 students on roll. The vast majority of them are pleasant, good-natured and biddable - we have relatively few very difficult students. There are over 90 teaching staff and I have nothing but admiration for their professional skills and conscientiousness. Our support staff are of equally high quality.
We have gained a “School Achievement Award” because of our excellent and improving GCSE results. A level results have set new records for the School each year since 1998. We have rising rolls, being over subscribed in all school years and, indeed, being one of the most oversubscribed secondary schools in Shropshire. The School’s most recent Ofsted inspection report (March 2007) graded us as 'outstanding'.
We are a designated Arts College, specialising in the Media Arts and this has brought in considerable extra resources whilst adding generally to teaching and learning styles, extra-curricular activities and the community work of the School. We have a Media Arts Centre with top of the range, state of the art equipment and facilities. We also lead on the development of the former Wem Town Hall. Situated in the centre of the town, and just two minutes walk from our Noble Street site, this provides the School with state-of-the-art educational facilities for its Media Arts programme. We will, of course, continue to offer a full curriculum and attempt to meet the needs of all students wherever their expertise or interest lies. From April 2007, as a high-achieving school, we were also designated with an Applied Learning specialism. This is allowing us to give our students a range of opportunities for applied learning while maintaining a strong emphasis on “traditional” subject areas too. We are now running courses in Key Stage 4 such as Applied Art, Catering and Music Technology, for example, as well as more conventional courses such as Geography, History, Religious Studies and Modern Languages.
The pastoral system is organised by year group and is very strong and effective and there are very low levels of bullying. Meanwhile, we encourage our students to participate in the wide range of extra-curricular activities on offer. Our reputation with parents is exceptionally high and there is considerable pride in the School amongst the local community, which we intend to keep justifying. Certainly we hope that the happy atmosphere and good relationships within Thomas Adams will be very evident to those who visit the School.
