"We’ve been so proud of how our outstanding pupils have approached the year after a significant period of disruption due to the pandemic. It’s been fantastic to see the school continue to move forward despite this disruption, with school improvement strategies continuing to build on previous successes."
John Carlin, Principal
Reading for success
Reading and literacy is the fundamental skill that sits within the skill set of successful learners. It underpins a pupil’s ability to learn and progress in every subject that they undertake.
We’ve been really pleased with our bespoke reading curriculum that was introduced this year, providing dedicated time within the curriculum for pupils to develop their reading and literacy skills. The curriculum exposes pupils to a range of reading materials and resources through a thematic approach and staff, who have received specific training, are able to guide learners through the material to develop and refine their reading skills.
This, combined with our form time reading programme and the inclusion of subject based literature within the curriculum for each subject, supports pupils with their reading fluency, their ability to decode text and with comprehension.
Exposure to more opportunities to read supports the development of pupil vocabulary, but we have also embedded a new vocabulary strategy this year focused on specifically delivering the vocabulary found in Coxhead’s academic word list. This extensive list is derived from Avril Coxhead’s research identifying the words most frequently used within academic text. Pupils study words so that they are familiar with the words they are likely to encounter when studying subjects encountered in our rigorous and academic curriculum. This wider vocabulary will serve pupils well when they need to undertake independent study through college and university and also whilst navigating their chosen career.
Pupils have enjoyed their learning through the reading curriculum and we’ve been delighted with the progress we’ve been able to track through nationally standardise assessments undertaken at the start of each term. We’re pleased to report that the results show an improvement at each assessment point, with each year group sitting above the national average for age related standardised scores; that it is to say that, on average, pupils’ reading ability sits above their peers nationally.
We’d like to congratulate pupils on their progress in this area across the year.
Dual curriculum award
Our Dual Curriculum programme has been a significant success at our school this year. The programme, which supports pupils to develop their wider skills that complement their academic achievements, has provided pupils with the chance to progress towards “mastery” in areas such as oracy, leadership, teamwork, listening, problem solving and creativity.
Pupils have access to over 35 enrichment clubs each term all targeted at developing these wider skills so valued by employers. We were pleased to receive a certificate of excellence from Pearson in relation to our work in partnership with East Learning on developing this strand of school life.
Around the World with PHS
In February, we were thrilled to be joined by over 1000 primary school pupils from 35 primary school classes across Warrington for our Around the World with PHS event. The live languages event was beamed directly into classrooms as a live interactive broadcast online, enabling pupils to engage with a range of modern foreign language activities. Pupils undertook activities in Swedish, Spanish, German, Mandarin Chinese, French and Latin.
The event allowed our staff to utilise skills developed whilst delivering effective remote learning during the period of lockdown and it was fantastic to see so many pupils benefit from the session!
Successes
We were thrilled to learn the news that Warrington Borough Council has committed a £2.4 million contribution towards the site development programme at Penketh High School. The funding contributes to collaborative financial package from Warrington Borough Council, The Challenge Academy Trust and bid being submitted to the Department for Education school rebuilding programme.
The funding will mark the start of an exciting period of site development which will enable the council to meet its statutory school place sufficiency requirements and provide the school with an improvement to the school and learning environment.
In April, a team of Year 9 pupils from Penketh won the United Utilities STEM challenge. They spent a number of weeks planning for the ‘Engineering your future’ masterclass final and were thrilled to win the challenge event. Teams from a number of schools were involved and all pupils should be proud of their efforts, congratulations!
Highly commended
Huge congratulations to Mrs Hutt who was highly commended in the Pearson awards after being nominated in the Unsung Hero Award category. Mrs Hutt works tirelessly to support our pupils, working with them on a one-to-one basis and identifying opportunities to support their success. Congratulations on a well-deserved commendation!
Key dates
Transition events for the new intake Year 7 pupils, July 5-6, 2022
Open evening for Year 7 pupils September 2023 – September 29, 2022
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