From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

St Edward's Roman Catholic/Church of England School is a voluntary aided secondary school in Poole, Dorset in South West England.

St Edwards turned 40 years old in 2003, and is one of only nine joint Roman Catholic and Church of England secondary schools in the country.

Originally the school was only open to Roman Catholic students, but over time as the school has grown and as more students have been enrolled, the school has changed its status to accept Protestant students as well. As a result, the school is affiliated with both the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plymouth and the Anglican Diocese of Salisbury.

The school offers a wide variety of subjects at GCSE and has a growing sixth form for students continuing on to A-level.

St Edward's school is linked with Bele Zinkuka school, South Africa, whose netball team visited the UK in 2005 and played against local schools in Poole.

The school is currently pending status as a "Specialist School for Performing Arts".

Recent developments

The school has developed greatly in recent years and is now one of the most sought after secondary schools in the area, after the Poole and Parkstone Grammar schools. More recent development within the school include:

• A state-of-the-art sports hall and changing facilities, along with a fully equipped fitness suite.
• A new Music and SEN-CO area to compliment the current music room.
• A modern sixth-form block with many classrooms, a common room area, a large study room and four fully equipped ICT classrooms.
• Smart board technology being used in almost every classroom, and all teachers being equipped with laptop computers.
• 2 Science laboratory classrooms and a new, larger main Art room.
• An extensive school computer network system that interconnects the many computers in the school intranet, and to a wide range of other resources on the school network.

GCSE results 2007

The school again attained good GCSE results in 2007 with 75% of students gaining 5 A* - C grades and 76% of those students gaining 9, 10 and 11 A* - C grades. The number of students gaining A and A* grades increased from 62 in 2006 to 81 in 2007.

All students attained 1 A* - G grade pass, once again showing very good ability amongst all of the students, and a credit to their hard work.

GCE A-level results 2007

The school also achieved good GCE A-level results with almost 100% pass rates in nearly every subject.

• 97% of subject entries achieved a pass grade of A - E.
• 63% of subject entries achieved pass grades in the higher grade band of A - C.

Ofsted reports

The school maintains a good history of positive OFSTED reports. The 2007 OFSTED report can be found here

School houses

On the 17 September 2007, school history was made as the school house system was launched. At the start of the school year, every student, teacher, teaching assistant, school cleaner, admin clerk and chaplain, excluding Mrs Bevan was allocated a school house coloured red, blue, yellow or green. Students were invited to vote on the names of the houses with themes including the four gospel writers, local natural landmarks, four islands in Poole Harbour, environmental flora around the school, places associated with Saint Edward and four different saints.

The four house names voted for by students were:

• Yellow - Durdle - Led by Mr Tim Foster
• Red - Lulworth - Led by Mr Ian Kirtland
• Blue - Brownsea - Led by Mr Andrew Smith
• Green - Corfe - Led by Mr Nick Taylor

See also

• List of schools in Poole

External links

• St. Edward's RC CE VA School - School website.