Bridgewater High 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 ...

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

, located over two sites in Appleton, Warrington, Cheshire. The current principal is Keiron Powell, with Tracey Hatton as Head Teacher. The school day runs from 8:40 A.M. to 3:10 P.M. and uses a 5 period structure.

History

The school was formed in 1987 by the amalgamation of Appleton Hall County Grammar School and Stockton Heath County High School. Appleton Hall became the new school's Lower Site, while Stockton Heath (known locally as Broomfields after the attached leisure centre) became the Upper Site. The school previously held specialist

Arts College An Arts College, in the United Kingdom, is a type of specialist school that specialises in the subject fields of the performing, visual, digital and/or media arts. They were announced in 1996 and introduced alongside Sports Colleges to En ...

status with additional specialisms in

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

and

Maths Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, theories and theorems that are developed and proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many areas of mathematics, which include num ...

. It consistently achieves good

GCSE The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools ...

results. The most recent OFSTED inspection judged the school to be Good. The school converted to academy status on 1 December 2014, and is now part of the

multi-academy trust Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) or academy chain is an academy trust that operates more than one academy school. Academy schools are state-funded schools in England which are directly funded by the Department for Education and independent of local aut ...

TCAT (The Challenge Academy Trust).

Banding system

The pupils are split into two bands, Stockton and Appleton. In years 7, 8 and 9 pupils typically have lessons with other members of their band. In the GCSE years (10 & 11), two additional bands are introduced (independently of the original two), L and K. Pupils are split between the two bands for compulsory lessons (P.E and PSHE), but GCSE lessons are independent of this. In these two years, the original Stockton and Appleton are observed only for assemblies and pastoral periods.

Links and exchanges

In the past, the school has been linked with Soweto High School which is situated in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, with an exchange between pupils and teachers taking place. The school continues to take part in pupil exchanges to

Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, lying just south of Cape Cod. It is known for being a popular, affluent summer colony, and includes the smaller peninsula Chappaquiddick Isla ...

, and Germany.

Notable former pupils

Rebekah Brooks Rebekah Mary Brooks (; born 27 May 1968) is a British media executive and former journalist and newspaper editor. She has been chief executive officer of News UK since 2015. She was previously CEO of News International from 2009 to 2011 and was ...

(nee Wade), journalist and first female editor of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

Tim Firth Tim Firth (born 13 October 1964) is an English dramatist, screenwriter and songwriter. Life and career Firth was born in Frodsham, England. He spent much of his time at school writing songs and it was only a few weeks before going to King's ...

, playwright/screenwriter whose works include Calendar Girls *

Ruby O'Donnell Ruby Victoria O'Donnell (born 26 October 2000) is an English actress. Since 2013, O'Donnell has portrayed the role of Peri Lomax in the Channel 4 soap opera ''Hollyoaks''. For her portrayal of Peri, she won the award for Best Young Performance a ...

, actress who plays as

Peri Lomax Peri Lomax is a fictional character from the British Channel 4, E4 soap opera ''Hollyoaks'' and is portrayed by Ruby O'Donnell. Peri made her first on-screen appearance in episode 3705, originally broadcast on 4 October 2013. After being introduc ...

in ''

Hollyoaks ''Hollyoaks'' is a British soap opera which originally began airing on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was created by Phil Redmond, who had previously conceived the soap opera ''Brookside (TV series), Brookside''. From 2005 to 2023, episodes h ...

References

External links

Bridgewater High School
{{authority control Secondary schools in Warrington Academies in Warrington