Greenshaw High School

At Greenshaw High School our students and staff work very hard to ensure the best academic results. For example, in 2019 over a quarter of our Year 11 students attained a grade 7 or higher (previously A grade at GCSE) in English, and just under one in four did the same in Maths. 11% of all GCSE passes were at grades 9 and 8 (the new highest grades) setting up our Year 11 students for future success. In our sixth form, students achieve results in the top 25% of the country and they go on to some of the best university courses in the world. Despite the national controversy around examination results this summer, over 40 of our sixth form students progressed to Russell Group universities, including both Oxford and Cambridge.

We are absolutely committed to achieving excellence. In our school this should always encompass the twin aims of high wellbeing for young people and adults, alongside academic excellence. Maintaining both of these is our core purpose.

As a comprehensive school, we hold dear the idea of curriculum breadth. We want all of our students to experience a wide range of subjects from maths, English, sciences, humanities and languages, but retain a place for the performing and creative arts. We will offer broad pathways in our comprehensive schools that suit students’ prior attainment, and will always find the right course for our learners, rather than suiting any particular government performance measure.

We also accept our social responsibility to educate our students about important areas that do not fall neatly into subject categories, but are critical to young people being empowered citizens and intellectually capable. This includes the books we read in tutor time, and the homework scheme we call The Big Ideas that Shaped the World.

We believe that consistent hard work will always beat any notion of ‘talent’, without hard work. We aim to train all of our learners into the regular completion of homework, and constant hard work through the school day - and beyond - to build the habits necessary for success.

A marker of our educational excellence will be our students’ social impact. This means within the immediate community around our school, across Sutton and more widely, even on the international stage. This could include volunteering, raising funds or making other forms of contribution. We want excellent academic results that allow pupils to enter the next phase of their education, but also productive citizens as they move into adulthood.