Welcome to Airedale High School - the Arts College
Our school motto is "striving for excellence" and that means for every student.
At Airedale, every child really does matter and we are ambitious for them all.
Our GCSE results have risen 7 out of the last 8 years and the last two years have seen excellent improvements with 53% of students achieving 5 or more A* to C grades and nearly 90% achieving 5 or more A* to G grades. By 2010, over 70% of our students will achieve 5 or more A* to C grades.
We have a personalised curriculum. By that I mean that if a youngster arrives with poor literacy skills in Year 7 then they will study more English and a different curriculum to our Gifted and Talented students.
This year we have students in Year 9 who are taking GCSE’s in Maths, Science, Technology, French and ICT.
Some students, by the end of Year 9, will have 4 GCSE’s, and will study A/S levels in Year 11. Students of all abilities take examination courses that will result in them being able to compete for the best college places and jobs when they leave.
There is no school in Wakefield LA that has better IT facilities and our tradition of success in sport and the performing arts is legendary!
An Ofsted visit in December 2006 said the following: “Positive discipline and praise by staff permeate the school and pupils respond with mutual respect and good manners” and “the school is making outstanding progress”. 110 parents of last year’s Year 7 students were surveyed with the following results:
- 95% found the induction programme helpful
- 93% found the staff helpful and approachable
- 92% felt their child had settled well into the school by half term.
We are a good school with a hugely talented, hardworking staff who are determined to make us into an outstanding school! You are welcome to join us.
Paul Frazer
Principal
The Arts College
Raising standards throughout
Airedale High School is an 11-16 co-educational comprehensive school located in Airedale, Castleford.
The school boasts a number of impressive facilities including a Student Services Block (incorporating the POD-4-U and School-Based Health Service), a community-based Sports Centre, Music recording studio, recently-refurbished Idols school canteen, Year 7 Base and a vast range of thoroughly modern ICT suites and facilities.
AHS has enjoyed steady increases in all of its headline figures over the last five years. The 2007 cohort achieved 53.2% A*-C grades at GCSE and GNVQ/BTEC level, a significantly above-target increase of almost 8% on 2006.
This incorporates improvements in 5 A*-C grades including both English and Mathematics. Contextual value-added and average points scores are above target and would suggest the school is easily in the top 25% of schools nationally using this indicator.
A health check visit by OFSTED in December 2006 noted that the school was 'making outstanding progress in addressing the issues for improvement. ICT has been developing with vigour and enthusiasm. In lesson observations during the monitoring visit ICT was an integral part of pupils' learning opportunities'.
- "Pupils are fully engaged in their lessons"
- "All are eager to achieve"
- "The new school uniform is worn with pride by all pupils"
- "Behaviour around school and in lessons is good"
- "Clearly focused learning activities which build on their individual targets"
- "Pupils want to come to school and learn"
- "Sport is a major strength of the school"