Science College
St Michael's - A Specialist Science College
"The specialist science status has had a positive impact on the curriculum" Ofsted 2007
Specialist Science College Status enables St Michael's to focus on:
- Raising the standard of learning and teaching and therefore standards of achievement across the whole curriculum, with particular focus on Science and Maths, at all levels of age and ability
- Increasing interest and enthusiasm in all science and maths courses
- Increasing the range of opportunities available to all members of St Michael's, the partner schools and the wider community
- Extending and enriching the curriculum by providing more opportunities for vocational and technological experience
Becoming a Specialist Science College has enabled our school and our wider community to benefit from a variety of opportunities. We regularly organise science-related, after-school, family learning activities and family days out for students of St Michael's and our partner schools, supported by funding from Yorkshire Forward. Enrichment activities take place, throughout the school year, in the shape of educational visits and workshops in school. These activities have an impact on the life of the school, for example National Science and Engineering Week is celebrated across the curriculum and the Eco-council was established as a result of a whole-school focus on the environment. We have now achieved the Eco-Schools award. We are one of only 250 schools nationally to be offered a substantial amount of funding by the DCSF to run an after-school Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) Club for our Key Stage 3 students. This will complement our Fast Track Science Club, created to enable our most enthusiastic and able scienctists to take their science SATs a year early and begin studying GCSE Triple Science in Year 9.
Student comments
"We get to study subjects in more depth. If you are capable you can do more"
"We get to do much more practical work in Science and Technology"