St Peter's Catholic School

 

St. Peter’s has an excellent academic record and all pupils who come here make very good progress. We welcome children of all abilities, whether highly gifted and talented or with special needs. The school provides a broad, balanced curriculum with Religious Education at the core of all learning. We are proud of our close links with partner primary schools which enable us to place each child in the most appropriate teaching groups for their ability and needs. The groupings are constantly reviewed and each child's progress is closely monitored. After five years, a high proportion of St. Peter's pupils achieve very good grades. This is the result of their being placed carefully on appropriate pathways. A smaller, personally tailored programme of GCSEs is made available to pupils with special needs. The vast majority of our pupils continue into further education and our Sixth Form students regularly achieve entry to the most prestigious of universities, including Oxbridge.  

Innovative practices in teaching and learning are embedded across the school. Our students have regular opportunities to go on trips and visits, listen to outside speakers, take part in work experience or participate in long-term projects leading to nationally recognised accreditation.  

Our pastoral care system supports individual pupils and their learning and is essential to academic progress and success. Every child needs a happy, secure environment to learn well. Being personally known and cherished equally helps each one of our students to benefit from all that our school offers. At St. Peter’s, we strongly encourage all pupils to become actively involved in the pastoral life of our school, whether this be through applying to be a peer mediator and mentor; being nominated to be a form captain or a School Council representative or, for our Sixth Formers, taking part in paired tutoring to assist younger pupils with literacy or numeracy. We are immensely proud that a significant number of our pupils apply to become prefects in Year 11 and annual interviews are held to appoint our senior prefects and our Head Boy and Girl. We are passionate about ensuring that every pupil develops spiritually, morally, socially and physically. Therefore, we strongly value the extra-curricular life of our school and encourage all pupils to get involved in a wide range of clubs and activities.  

A good education is the best possible preparation for adult life and at St. Peter’s we aim to ensure that every student thrives and flourishes. Our distinctiveness rests on the Catholic character and ethos of our school and this lies at the heart of everything we do. We endeavour to educate pupils in a Catholic atmosphere so that they are enabled to value life-long learning and the Gospel message can be related to everyday life and work.

In August 2015, after a rigorous selection process, we were delighted to be designated as a National Teaching School. This status has allowed us to develop our work in Initial Teacher Training, Continuing Professional Development and School-to-School Support. We currently have an Alliance of seven primary schools and five secondary schools, as well as other institutions and organisations such as The Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham, The University of Warwick, Newman University and Solihull LA. The main focus of our work is School Direct, and we have a proven track record of what we call ‘growing our own’; recruiting the highest calibre trainees who then become our future teachers and leaders in school. We work closely with the Universities in the area and regularly lead training for these institutions. We also participate in a number of national projects and initiatives, such as the Return to Teaching Pilot and the Maths and Physics Internship Scheme.