About Us

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Our Improvement Vision

Young people only get one chance at education; therefore, at Wilmslow High School we are committed to the pursuit of excellence for every student, every day. We do this through our dedication to learning, by being guided by values and in striving to serve.

We are committed to preserving a happy and caring environment that is rooted in our core values, and in which staff and students can flourish, whilst challenging ourselves to pursue excellence for all our students.

This is a time of growth and development for our school, and we look forward to the future with excitement.

What does the pursuit of excellence look like at Wilmslow High School?

A whole curriculum

We are committed to a broad and balanced ‘whole’ curriculum delivered by knowledgeable subject specialists, which offers all our students a rich diet of scholastic, creative, practical and sporting opportunities. We are proud of our wide range of both curricular and extra-curricular provision (over 30 subjects at GCSE and A Level and over 50 extra curricular activities) and the variety of opportunities that we are able to offer our students to grow and excel at school, regional and national level. Our sports specialism remains at the heart of our culture and ethos in raising participation, expectations and standards. We are also looking to develop further as a Reading School.

Research-based teaching

A great strength at Wilmslow High School is our excellent subject knowledge, but we are keen to challenge ourselves and raise attainment by developing our pedagogical expertise further. We are currently working across the school to deepen our understanding of ‘Big Ideas’ and effective assessment. We are looking to develop further our knowledge of ‘what works and why’ through our growing range of CPD, book clubs, lesson study and action research.

High expectations

We aim to grow young people of character who will flourish in their futures. We want each and every one of our students to have a worthwhile ambition for their future that we can help them to achieve. We expect the highest standards of courtesy and respect from our students and are rarely disappointed. We also expect all our staff to support the maintenance of our high standards, but we are looking to develop further the resilience of our students to demand more challenge in their learning.

Commitment to every child

Every child matters at Wilmslow High School so we were very proud to be the first school in the country to be accelerated to Inclusion Quality Mark Flagship Status in 2015. We are very proud of our House system that lies at the heart of ‘The Wilmslow Way.’ We have a range of innovative strategies that we use to support our students but we are looking to develop our range of teaching and learning strategies further so that all our students can fulfill their potential. Particular areas that we are keen to develop are the performance of our low attaining students and ‘hard to reach’ students.

Commitment to the wider educational community

We are a thoughtful, reflective, innovative community, keen to build ‘professional capital’ at a local and national level. We are strongly committed to the Whole Education Network, as a pathfinder school and inaugural member of the Northwest regional network. We are also proud of our contribution to the educational community both through our contribution to local Teach Meets and subject hubs, and our involvement presenting at national conferences and ResearchEd events.

Commitment to the wider community

We see our school as being at the heart of the local, regional, national and global community for all our students. We have excellent links through the KPMW soft federation with other local secondary schools (Knutsford, Poynton and Middlewich). We also have strong and developing connections through the Wilmslow Education Partnership with our partner primaries.   We are keen to work with our local community, and were proud to be highly commended in the TES Community and Collaboration Awards (2015) for our links to local businesses through our Achievement Partners Programme.

School performance

Wilmslow High School has been inspected by Ofsted on four occasions since 2011 and has been graded at least “good” on each of these. Our most recent inspection in May 2019 has resulted in “good” grades for each of the separate areas for judgement: quality of teaching, learning and assessment, personal development and behaviour, outcomes of pupils, quality of 16-19 study programmes, leadership and management, and overall effectiveness.

Examination results at GCSE and A-Level are strong, with attainment data being consistently impressive within the school performance tables and progress data now recorded as being “above national average”.

Nevertheless, we recognise that there is more to be done in both embedding the gains that we have made and raising attainment further. We look forward to working together to achieve this.

About our school

Wilmslow is a pleasant commuter town with a population of about 30,000. Our school is the only state secondary in the town, drawing from a catchment of Wilmslow, Handforth and Alderley Edge. We are heavily oversubscribed due to the excellent reputation that the school enjoys. We are a large school, with approximately 2000 students on roll, including a sixth form of almost 500 students; however, due to our strong sense of community, we are a school in which every child is known.

Our intake of high attaining students is significantly above national average, but our intake of top attaining students is average. We have a higher percentage of boys than average and, as part of our commitment to inclusion, we host two LA-funded resource provisions for Hearing Impairment and Autistic Spectrum Condition. The social composition of our catchment is extremely wide, ranging from students with the lowest IDACI score possible to students from areas within the top 20% of deprivation in the country. Approximately 16% of our students are disadvantaged, and narrowing the aspiration and attainment gap for these students remains a priority for us.

Professional Development

We are keen to develop our teachers and future leaders whatever their career stage. We run induction programmes for new staff and for newly qualified teachers, and are extensively involved in initial teacher training through PGCE and Teach. First   We have close links with ‘Whole Education’ development programmes. Targeted mentoring is also provided for those eligible to apply for pay progression. Our middle leadership meetings are open to all teachers and we are happy to provide coaching and leadership opportunities for teachers who are keen to progress their careers. Our local and national links mean that there are plenty of opportunities for those who wish to ‘make their mark’ in education.