Parrs Wood High School

Parrs Wood High School is a popular oversubscribed mixed 11-18 community school with a thriving Sixth Form that has a proven record of academic excellence.The original school opened in 1967 as an 11-18 co-educational comprehensive situated in the South Manchester suburb of Didsbury. It now occupies an enviable site at the heart of the community, having been completely rebuilt in 2000. The main school accommodates 1500 pupils in years 7 to 11, whilst our 400 Sixth Form students are mainly based in Parrs Wood House, our 18th Century Georgian Villa.

Parrs Wood is truly comprehensive. It is a multi-cultural, multi-faith school with a broad range of ability levels. It has an excellent local, national and international reputation. The school is at the heart of the local community and its facilities are used by a wide range of community groups including being a base for the Bobby Charlton International Summer School programme.

Parrs Wood is proud of its place in the community. We believe that our strong links with local primary schools, further and higher education providers and local businesses are of significant benefit to our students.We have a large, flourishing Sixth Form housed in the unique atmosphere of a beautiful Georgian Villa Parrs Wood House. The new facilities provide spacious teaching rooms and study facilities with the advantages of a college setting within a supportive and structured environment. A separate prospectus is available for the Sixth Form Centre.
As an 11-18 school, it is our expectation and hope that the vast majority of our pupils will remain with us into the sixth form to achieve the level 3 qualifications they desire to enter Higher Education, an apprenticeship or the workplace.

Ofsted judged Parrs Wood Sixth Form to be good and particularly praised the `strong community spirit engendered’, `effective leadership’ and `strong care, guidance and support’.Protecting children from maltreatment and preventing impairment of children’s health or development is necessary, but not sufficient to ensure that children are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care.

The Parrs Wood curriculum is designed to offer each student the opportunity to fulfil their potential through a wide range of on site non-vocational and vocational qualifications.Our curriculum structure works through a one-week timetable where every day has 6 lessons of 50mins each plus a Personal Development Curriculum session at the start of the day. Within this schedule we aim to provide a broad, balanced, coherent and challenging curriculum for all, which enables each student to enjoy learning and achieve success in school.

Students move through the Key Stage 3 (years 7-9) National Curriculum at the rate most suited to their ability and we work closely with our partner primary schools to ensure a smooth and successful transition to high school and the new curriculum. The vast majority of our students embark on GCSE programmes during year 9 and all have the chance to complete at least one GCSE and a BTEC National Certificate (equivalent to 2 GCSEs at grades A*-C) by the end of the year.

For Years 10 and 11, our students can opt to study a full range of GCSEs or combine their core GCSEs with other qualifications in more applied or vocational subjects. Our curriculum at this key stage is aimed at securing the best possible opportunities for students post-16 and we offer a comprehensive package of Careers guidance and support to underpin this. The range of GCSEs on offer at Key Stage 4 builds into our sixth form curriculum and we encourage as many of our students as possible to remain with us into the sixth form to continue their education. A separate prospectus for the sixth form is available from the Sixth Form Centre.

Due to our tradition for offering a broad and balanced curriculum that ensures rigour, national recognition and acceptance, and learning pathway continuity, we are best placed for the vast majority of our students to gain the English Baccalaureate qualification. In addition, we offer an Apprenticeship Pathway to meet the needs and aspirations for some of our students.

Child protection is part of the safeguarding process. It focuses on protecting individual children identified as suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. This includes child protection procedures which detail how to respond to concerns about a child.Safeguarding children and child protection guidance and legislation applies to all children up to the age of 18.At Parrs Wood High School and Sixth Form we recruit experienced members of staff to enhance our safeguarding and child protection at all times. Keeping our students safe is our main priority, which is why we work closely with parents and our safeguarding and child protection team to ensure our students remain on the right path towards to achieve their full potential in education.

For the parent or carers of children at Parrs Wood we always aim to provide as much information as possible. We endeavour to work closely with parents in order to ensure their children are heading towards their goals and ambitions.At Parrs Wood High and Sixth Form we aim to provide as much support as possible to help our students have an enjoyable experience with us. We always encourage parents to work closely with our staff to help build a positive future for all students.At Parrs Wood we are always welcome to feedback and strive for parents in helping us understand what we could do better to help their children.

We have designed this section of the website to allow parents or carers to understand more about us as an institute, and what we are all about. If you would require any further information or resources, please contact our school office and we will be delighted to help you in everyway possible.One of our passions are to keep our parents up to date with everything that goes on in our school. Nothing is more important than having the peace of mind on what your child/children are achieving and getting up to in school.