Welcome
Welcome to Southgate School, a school that works tirelessly to deliver on its motto: Excellence For All.
We are celebrating another year of superb student outcomes at Post-16 and Year 11, at A Level, GCSE and both level 2 and 3 BTEC. In a year when it was announced that there would be fewer top grades, to reduce grade inflation and to bring results back in line with those of 2019, we saw 53 individual A* grades at A Level, students going to top universities (including Cambridge) and nothing but Distinction* grades (the top BTEC or C Tech grade) in several subjects. At GCSE we had a seriously impressive number of grade 9s with some students getting nothing but 9s or a combination of 8s and 9s. In short, we are delivering excellence in the classroom and our students are clearly benefitting from it. Indeed, I am incredibly proud and humbled by the quality of teaching that I see when I walk the school site, be it from those colleagues just starting out as teachers or those who have been teaching for years but still retain that energy and strong moral purpose to do all that they can to help our young people.
For we are an academic school where increasingly students are choosing to stay on into our 6th Form because they know that they will have a top learning experience and thus be able to fulfil their ambitions.
We put this success down to our commitment to educate the whole child, to deliver a holistic education that develops a child’s character and self-belief in order that they can be successful in adult life in a rapidly changing world. We are motivated by the words of Sir John Jones, who said:
‘Children may forget what teachers made them think, but they will always remember how teachers made them feel…’
This remarkably prescient and powerful quote illustrates what drives our commitment to educate the whole child, to ensure (as we do) that school is fun, that there are numerous opportunities for children of all talents to experience success and, fundamentally – almost quaintly old-fashioned – we believe that happy children tend to be more successful. We are academically successful for sure, but we are absolutely not an exam factory.
This partly explains our success to date, but obviously what happens in the classroom is fundamental to all that we do. In this respect we are fortunate indeed, for with the reputation that our school has, we are able to attract high calibre candidates for all teaching and support staff positions even during a time when there is a national challenge in teacher recruitment. In some schools you may have an outstanding teacher teaching next door to a mediocre teacher, but that doesn’t happen here because we are in a position to appoint from the very best teachers, which in turn means that your child will go from one fantastic learning experience to another.
Our Enrichment curriculum is extensive, with all manner of after-school clubs, from gaming, to music, to drama and art and very successful sports teams. Student participation in all levels of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme embodies this focus on the whole child. We have mass participation with hundreds of students involved, with increasing numbers completing the Gold Award and going to Buckingham Palace to receive it and our coordinators being recognised by the Palace for their commitment and being invited to attend the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Party as reward for their endeavours.
Why don’t you contact the school to arrange a tour to see us in action?
Mr Martin Lavelle
Headteacher
