Ferndown Upper School is a

comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is res ...

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 ...

located in

Ferndown Ferndown is a town and civil parish in Dorset in southern England, immediately to the north of Bournemouth and Poole. The parish, which until 1972 was called ''Hampreston'', includes the communities of Hampreston, Longham, Stapehill and Trickett' ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

. Opened in 1972, it has grown to accommodate a broad and successful curriculum including a specialism in

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

(science, technology and maths) and the Arts.

Academics

For three consecutive years now Ferndown Upper School achieved high academic success with the best results for GCSE progress in Dorset. The last time the DfE produced performance tables Ferndown Upper was declared the 'Best Upper School in the Country'.

Science Curriculum

It is one of few non-selective state schools in the country to enable all students to study all three single science GCSEs. This was to ensure equal access to all students and to build upon the excellent record that Ferndown Upper had of delivering Biology, Chemistry and Physics. An All Party Parliamentary Committee looking into STEM education quoted this curriculum innovation as examples of best practice in a Parliamentary Report published in May 2020.

Notable Former Pupils

Sam Surridge - Football player for

Stoke City F.C. Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

Nigel Smart Nigel James Smart (born 21 May 1969) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Smart played most of his career in defence and became a crowd favourite, easily ide ...

- Professor of Cryptography

Digital Technology Curriculum

The school has expanded its specialism into a broad but specialist digital technology curriculum that now even goes beyond the classroom. The school boasts its own Computing and Robotics Centre, a set of specialist laboratories to allow digital engineering, software engineering and robotics in their curriculum from Year 9 to Year 13. This was recently further enhanced by a £100,000 grant from the Wolfson Foundation in 2020 to help develop some of these specialist areas. In September 2020, the school with designated a ‘FIRST Champion School’ in recognition of its work as a centre of excellence in engaging students in engineering and robotics. In January 2020 the department's fernDOWNLOAD Robotics club became regional champions in the

FIRST Tech Challenge FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), formerly known as FIRST Vex Challenge, is a robotics competition for students in grades 7–12 to compete head to head, by designing, building, and programming a robot to compete in an alliance format against other te ...

competition (Season 19/20). The department now boasts the largest girls’ competitive robotics club in the country. In 2020 Ferndown Upper School was announced to be the first school in Dorset to be launching the new pioneering 'T Level' courses at its Sixth Form in 2022. The school will be the first to fully train

Software Developers A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

and

Network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

Engineers Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

with these new qualifications developed with assistance from local industry."Ferndown Upper School First to offer T Levels"
''Bournemouth Echo''. Retrieved 5 Feb 2021.

References

{{authority control Upper schools in Dorset Community schools in Dorset Educational institutions established in 1972 1972 establishments in England