St John's Catholic Comprehensive School
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

St John's Catholic Comprehensive School is a coeducational Roman Catholic
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, located in
Gravesend Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Ro ...
in the
English county The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term "county" is defined in several ways and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each ...
of Kent. It is a voluntary aided school in the trusteeship of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark, and is maintained by
Kent County Council Kent County Council is a county council that governs most of the county of Kent in England. It is the upper tier of elected local government, below which are 12 district councils, and around 300 town and parish councils. The county council h ...
. Although the school has its own admissions procedure, it does coordinate with Kent County Council for admissions. St John's Catholic Comprehensive School offers GCSEs, BTECs and OCR Nationals as programmes of study for pupils, while students in the sixth form have the option to study from a range of
A Levels The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational aut ...
and further BTECs.


Selection

Kent is a selective county, which means children at eleven must select whether to put themselves forward to take a competitive test.


Description

St John's Catholic Comprehensive is an 11 to 18 school in the Archdiocese of Southwark. It is larger than the average-sized secondary school. The executive headteacher and head of school have been appointed since 2012. The executive headteacher is the headteacher of an above average school in the Archdiocese of Southwark. About half the students are from White British backgrounds and the rest of the students come from a wide variety of minority ethnic groups, including Indian and Black African. The proportion of students who speak English as an additional language is significantly above the national average and the proportion of students eligible for the pupil premium (additional funding for students eligible for free school meals and those in the care of the local authority) is just above the national average. There were 54 students eligible for Year 7 catch-up funding in 2014: students who did not achieve Level 4 (the nationally expected level) in English and mathematics at the end of
Key Stage 2 Key Stage 2 is the legal term for the four years of schooling in maintained schools in England and Wales normally known as Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6, when the pupils are aged between 7 and 11 years. England and Wales Legal definition The t ...
. The proportion of disabled students and those who have special educational needs is one-tenth of the school roll, which is just above the national average. The school holds the British Council International School Award.


Buildings

To the left of the three-storey high central atrium, known as the ''heart'', are three identical teaching blocks. To the right are the gyms, dance studios, changing rooms, DT rooms music and art.


Curriculum

Virtually all maintained schools and academies follow the National Curriculum, and are inspected by Ofsted on how well they succeed in delivering a 'broad and balanced curriculum'. The school has to decide whether
Key Stage 3 Key Stage 3 (commonly abbreviated as KS3) is the legal term for the three years of schooling in maintained schools in England and Wales normally known as Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9, when pupils are aged between 11 and 14. In Northern Ireland the ...
contains years 7, 8 and 9- or whether year 9 should be in Key Stage 4 and the students just studying subjects that will be examined by the
GCSE The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...
exams at 16. St John's makes year 9 a transition year where students opt for some of the subjects on which they will be examined in year 11. Year 7 students, coming from the primary sector, all do core subjects. Year 8 is similar. In Year 9 students study seven Core subjects including Religion and Double English. They choose one EBACC subject (that means History, Geography or Spanish) they then choose two Key Stage 4 Options that they can continue with through to 16, and two Key Stage 3 Options that are one-year un-certificated courses. In Year 10, they select two more Key Stage 4 options making four in all, They continue Core subjects and EBacc. In Year Eleven, most students will continue with Core and EBacc but drop 2 of their 4 Key Stage 4 Options. It is these subjects on which they will be tested.


References

This article contains quotations from this source, which is available under th
Open Government Licence v3.0
© Crown copyright


External links


St John's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint John's Catholic Comprehensive School Secondary schools in Kent Catholic secondary schools in the Archdiocese of Southwark Voluntary aided schools in England