Sedgefield Community College, which is part of the Laidlaw Schools Trust, has been named The Sunday Times North East State Secondary School of the Decade by Parent Power, The Sunday Times Schools Guide, published in The Sunday Times and online this Sunday, November 29.
The 28th edition of Parent Power identifies the 2,000 highest-achieving schools in the UK, ranked by their most recently published examination results. A fully searchable national database by school name, local authority, town and postcode, together with regional rankings are available to Times and Sunday Times subscribers at: thesundaytimes.co.uk/parentpower
As well as assessment of all academic results on a school-by-school basis, Parent Power enables parents to compare the performance of a given school with other schools in the same town, local authority or nationally. There are also live links to school websites and schools’ most recent inspection reports.
Parent Power is widely acknowledged as the most authoritative survey of the country’s best schools. The rankings in the secondary school league tables are determined by the percentage of examination entries gaining A* to B grades at A-level (which is given double weighting) and the percentage of entries graded 9, 8 and 7, at GCSE and iGCSE.
Alastair McCall, editor of Parent Power, said: “Sedgefield Community College is the only comprehensive school without a sixth form to win a School of the Decade award, the school demonstrating amply that having no sixth form is no barrier to success.
“Our award is recognition for the outstanding progress made by the school in the past 10 years under David Davies and now Geoff Robinson. Expectations have been raised, ambition stoked, and challenges met and exceeded. This is a school at the heart of the community it serves, delivering a first-class education for its pupils, many of whom now achieve outstanding GCSE grades and leave with a wider school experience that sets them up for the next stage of education or their first steps into employment.”
Geoff Robinson, Headteacher of Sedgefield Community College, said “This accolade is testimony to the excellent teaching of our enthusiastic staff and the hard work and commitment of our students. At Sedgefield Community College, we seek to support our students to aim high and develop ambitions that enable dreams to be achieved. Such an accolade is clearly won by outstanding academic results and an ethos of learning and excitement around superb teaching. Our students do brilliantly because they are taught in a brilliant way. We want our students to fulfil their potential to not only benefit themselves but also their local communities, the region and the world around them. We are proud to have been awarded the Sunday Times North East State School of the Decade, congratulations are due to the whole Sedgefield Community as the dedication of the amazing staff, perseverance of our students, support of our parents and the commitment of our governing body is crucial to the continued development of our college.”
