Barnwell School is a

coeducational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

and

sixth form In the education systems of England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepare for A-l ...

that was established in 1959 and is situated in the south of

Stevenage Stevenage ( ) is a large town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, about north of London. Stevenage is east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1(M), between Letchworth Garden City to the north and Welwyn Garden City to the south. In 1946, Stevena ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

. Between 2002 and 2005 it was the most improved school in Hertfordshire and one of the most improved schools in England. The overall pass rate this year is 48 per cent for grades A to C — a one per cent increase on year before, but still below the national average by far. In September 2006 the school expanded by taking in the students from another nearby school that closed (Collenswood). As a consequence, the school now has two campuses: Barnwell Upper Campus (the original Barnwell site) and, less than a mile away, Barnwell Middle Campus (formerly the site of Collenswood School). The school was designated as a

Business and Enterprise College Business and Enterprise Colleges (BECs) were introduced in 2002 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in England. The system enabled secondary schools to specialise in certain fields. Schools that successfully applied to the Specialist Schoo ...

in September 2004 due to having an emphasis on maths, business and IT.

Barnwell podcast

Barnwell School decided that it needed a way to get information across to students while they are enjoying the information and introduced a

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

, that was available to students online. This was launched in October 2007. Sometime between its launch and 2015 the podcast was discontinued, in 2020 a group of Year 12 students attempted to resurrect it.

Extended schools

Barnwell School has been designated the hub school for South Stevenage Consortium of Extended Schools. The consortium consists of 8 schools plus a federation: *Barnwell School *Peartree Spring Junior School *Peartree Spring Infant School *Peartree Way Nursery School *Featherstone Wood Primary School *Roebuck Academy *St Margaret's Primary School *Shephalbury Meadow Federation (Longmeadow Primary School & Shephalbury Primary School) {{authority control Schools in Stevenage Secondary schools in Hertfordshire Educational institutions established in 1959 1959 establishments in England Foundation schools in Hertfordshire