A 3-16 school

Often, one of the biggest questions we get asked is what is a through school and how do they work? The answer is that through schools are many, many different things! There are around thirty across Wales now and they all differ significantly in terms of their physical layout and whether they are even on the same site, the staffing structure, the operations across a school, what proportion of the school is ages 3-11 and what proportion is 11-16.

We consider ourselves to be one school. We are on one site and ages 3-11 and 11-16 are educated in buildings that are next to each other. We have three values across the school; that we are ready, responsible and respectful. When we hold these three values, anything is possible.

All of our ‘systems’ are the same across the full school and, while it took a little while to develop and embed this, it really works well. While we currently have lower (nursery to year 3), middle (years 4 to 8) and upper (years 9 to 11), our staff are truly one team. Our professional learning is very collaborative and we learn from each other across the full 13 year continuum and all curriculum areas. Some of our teachers teach pupils across the full continuum, some teach only in lower, some teach across years 6-11, some teach years 6 and 7 - most of our teachers teach different year groups every year or every couple of years.