Whitchurch High School

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Whitchurch High (Foundation) School is a popular co-educational maintained comprehensive school with almost 2,300 pupils on the roll. Our intake is drawn from our seven partner primary schools based in northern Cardiff. These are Birchgrove, Coryton, Gabalfa, Hawthorn, Llanishen Fach, Rhiwbina, and Whitchurch Primary. The school is based on two sites in the suburb of Whitchurch. Years 7, 8, and 9 are based on the lower school site off Manor Way, with Years 10, 11, 12, and 13 students on the upper school site in the Village.
As a Foundation status school, granted in September 2011, the governors assume and discharge three enhanced responsibilities with the land and buildings secured in trust, being the direct employers of all staff and are the designated admissions authority for all students. The school receives the same level of formula funding as locally maintained secondary community schools.
As the Admissions Authority the governors directly manage all mainstream admissions, so parents and carers must directly apply to Whitchurch High School to secure a child's place. All applications for mainstream admissions must be completed using the Whitchurch High School (Foundation) School Form. For year seven entry in September 2018 the school is taking part in the Citywide coordinated admissions pilot which allows online applications to be made. The closing date is Monday 4th December 2017. Please see the Admissions section on the school website for more details or contact the school directly. We would be delighted to receive your application and look forward to hearing from you.
We are an inclusive school and have the largest SEN Specialist Resource Base (SRB) in the City located on both sites which admit up to seventy pupils from throughout the city. Cardiff Council separately administers all admissions for the SRB in partnership with the school.
We are a forward-looking innovative school in which well-proven, traditional values are allied to the best of modern teaching methods, including the extensive use of ICT. We aim to provide the very best learning environment and opportunities, inside and outside of the classroom, and are grateful to all those businesses who link with us to allow each student to thrive and succeed.
Our sixth form is one of the largest school sixth forms in the UK with nearly 420 students studying a range of courses and with a tradition of very high value-added benchmarked throughout England and Wales. Our students regularly go on to secure places at first-class universities, including Oxbridge and Russell Group.
We can offer a wide range of courses for students of all levels of abilities, including the More Able and Talented and those with Special Educational Needs. Excellent examination results ensure that a very high proportion of our students move on to University. All students from year 10 onwards follow the Welsh Baccalaureate (Skills Challenge) as part of the school's commitment to the Welsh Government's flagship qualification. This reinforces the school’s mission statement of “Learning for Life in a successful, inclusive and caring community.”
Staff is dedicated to helping each child achieve his or her potential and to this end we work closely in partnership with parents. The needs of each student are reviewed at regular intervals throughout their time with us. One of our fundamental aims is to develop responsible students who possess the qualities and skills which equip them for further study or employment. We celebrate personal successes at every opportunity.
We value our Welsh heritage and that our school is located in the Capital City of Wales. We wish our students to become global citizens and active participants in the worldwide community and provide many formal and informal opportunities to be so. We need to ever strengthen our global links to learn from and celebrate with each other, wherever we live.
We enjoy strong International relationships such as with our friends from Norway where every year we welcome exchange students who spend the year with us. In recent years we have widened our circle beyond our European connections and linked with Macassar High School in Cape Town, South Africa, and their wider community. The school was honored to have been recognized as a flagship link school for the 2012 London Olympics and is one of the few schools invited to participate in the 2014 NATO Summit.
Individuals are encouraged to think about their role in society and to consider the needs of others. Charity work and community involvement, therefore, feature strongly, motivating our students to become responsible citizens of the twenty-first century. We have a strong effective student council, which is fully involved in the running of the school.

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