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For Parents
I would like to offer you a very warm welcome to George Stephenson High School.
Many of you have already taken the opportunity to visit our school at our Open Day. If you have not yet had a tour round the school during the school day you would be welcome at any time. Please contact me direct by emailing or asking to speak to my PA, Lucy Docherty, to arrange a suitable time for a visit.
Our school has a really positive ethos, with very strong pastoral and academic guidance and a real emphasis on learning in everything we do. I genuinely believe the support, care and welfare of our students is second to none. This school is and will always be a fully inclusive school which puts the students at the very centre of all that it does. We want it to be a school that is always a happy, safe and enjoyable place to be. Further to that we want the school to be at the very heart of the local community and to become the school of choice of all who live here.
Importantly, examination results at all key stages have improved significantly over the last few years.
Last year we celebrated the best set of GCSE results, on every measure, that the school has ever had. As you will be aware, 67% of our students achieved 5+A*- C passes including English and Maths and an outstanding 32% of all grades were at A/A*. These represent our best ever results and continue a clear improving trend. The new Performance Tables show how well our students did compared to other schools. It is very positive news indeed. On all key measures for GCSE and A-Level we were in the top four of all the schools in North Tyneside. The A-Level results in 2011 were also excellent, matching last year's best ever results, and maintaining our high level of achievement. Our pass rate at A-Level last year was 99.3%, with 70% of all results achieved being A* to C grades. Our Average Points Score per student is 724, equalling our best ever APS last year. Only two other schools in North Tyneside have achieved higher than us this year and we are well above the Local Authority average. Again, the students at our school have performed incredibly well when compared to other schools. For example, the number of our students passing 3 or more A-Levels was very high at 89%. Only one other school in North Tyneside did better than this and across all 42 schools in Tyneside we were the fifth-highest achieving school on this measure.
These raw exam scores are obviously important but they do not necessarily reveal whether children are fulfilling their potential. More important than raw exam scores, therefore, is the progress students make in a school from their starting points in Year 7 to their GCSE performance at the end of Year 11. This pupil progress figure is known as a school's "Value Added" or "VA". The figure is centred on 1000 so anything above this means that the school is adding value. Our Value Added score for the last four years has been both high and improving. In 2008 it was 1007, in 2009 it was 1014, in 2010 it was 1027.6 and we are delighted to report that this year it is 1020.0. This is the second highest VA score across the whole of North Tyneside and puts us in the top 15% of all schools nationally. This figure confirms how well the young people are achieving at our school as it measures the progress that they make in the school in their first five years here. We are especially proud of these value added scores for the last four years. You can be confident from these figures that your child will be stretched and challenged to fulfil his or her academic potential from whatever starting point.
Ian D Wilkinson
Headteacher
