Park View has a very proud history of excellent academic success and our students continued to perform incredibly well on the national stage when it came to GCSE (and equivalent) results in 2023. As you can see in the table below, our students performed very well across a wide range of subjects and significantly above national and local averages too.

Given the uneven impact of the pandemic on school and college performance data, the government has said there is little value in comparing school performance for one school or college and another, or to data from previous years.

Strength in a wide range of subjects

A “Strong Pass” or above (a “high” C or better  for comparison) is the measure that is considered to be the quality standard that all students should aspire to. In this regard, there are a number of subject areas at Park View that can rightly celebrate high achievement.  These subjects include Mathematics (which has now improved in four successive non-Covid years), English Language, all of our Science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Dual Science) and Art/Design (Art, Graphics, Product Design and Food) subjects, Vocational subjects (Business, Health and Social Care and Sport Science) as well as Drama, French, History and RE. This shows the strength in depth of a range of disciplines throughout the school and this all-round performance is a great source of satisfaction for us. This is particularly true after Covid-19 significantly disrupted the education for these students in a way that nobody could have expected when they made their option choices.

Increased focus on lower ability students

Despite these impressive GCSE results we believe that there is still a lot to do to support all of our students to make significantly positive academic progress whilst they are with us. Whilst the vast majority of our students do incredibly well, we know that we need to do more to help support some of our lower ability and disadvantaged students to do better academically. This is particularly the case as we recover from the pandemic where the more disadvantaged students faced more disruption to their learning than their counterparts.
“Leaders have ensured that pupils study a broad and ambitious curriculum. Subject  leaders are clear about the most important content they want pupils to know and  how this builds up over time.”- Ofsted

Indeed, Ofsted recognised, when they visited us in December 2022, that we remain ambitious for all of our students but also recognised that we need to improve some of our practice of teaching the curriculum so that some of our lower ability and disadvantaged students can succeed as well as their more able counterparts. This is something we highlighted in our school improvement plans for 2022-24 and we are well on our way to narrowing this gap as we focus a lot of our development around this priority area.

Investing in the whole student experience

Rightly, the quest for academic excellence should be at the heart of any great school like ours but we have never been a school that has solely championed this. We invest in a curriculum that develops the knowledge and skills to perform well in exams and future careers but also the character for our students to take responsibility for their own learning and nurture strong values and character traits that will serve them well in the future.

“Leaders’ efforts to promote pupils’ personal development is good. Leaders have put  in place an effective programme that prepares pupils for life in modern Britain.”- Ofsted
We are delighted that Ofsted recognised the fantastic work that we do in Personal Development and our Extra-Curricular offer to develop the character of our young people which we think is a fundamental part of school life.
“Park View is a warm and welcoming secondary school. One of the school’s values is  respect for self and others. This value threads through the school and is evident in  the positive relationships between pupils and staff.”- Ofsted

Strong Values

Our values pervade all we do and the warm and supportive relationships that staff in the school have with our students is also a strength that is knitted into the fabric of our school culture. This culture undoubtedly leads to student behaviour that we can be proud of in classrooms and around the school buildings and once again was rightly recognised by Ofsted when they visited us recently.
“In lessons and at social times, pupils behave well.”- Ofsted

Sixth Form strength

Our increasingly popular Sixth Form and Academy of Sport is recognised as a particular strength of Park View and if you click on this link you can view the impressive academic performance of our 16-19 students alongside extracts from the recent Ofsted inspection that rightly highlights some of these strengths in more detail.in the sixth form learn and achieve well. They benefit from a well taught  curriculum and are well prepared for their next steps in education, employment or training.”- Ofsted
Here is our Ofsted Report for December 2022 as well as the DfE 2023 School Performance Tables where you can explore more about the performance of the school in terms of academic success, attendance and school profile as well as our financial performance.
Here is a link to a brief summary of some of the things we are doing to improve our quality of education for all of our young people. This is something we constantly reflect upon and add to over time.