St Bede’s Catholic College is committed to raising all our learners' educational attainment and progress, with a particular focus on improving the outcomes of those learners from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. All colleagues at St Bede’s Catholic College are committed to enabling all our learners to make progress and to develop the skills, knowledge, ambition, and understanding required for future learning and employment. Through our commitment to the principles of Catholic education and academic excellence, our learners, particularly those who are vulnerable, will maximise their life chances and secure their future economic well-being.
We have high aspirations for all our learners. Raising attainment, together with providing achievement and inclusion, are at the heart of our work. This does not mean just focusing on exam results but instead looking at attainment in its broadest sense. Through the offering of an ambitious and broad curriculum and by supporting the development of successful, confident, responsible, and effective learners, we will ensure they have and take opportunities to maximise their potential and make positive contributions to their communities.
The effective use of data is a particular strength at St Bede’s Catholic College and is integral to everything that we do, having a direct impact on teaching and learning and therefore progress. Data is used by all members of staff, from senior leaders through to support staff, to pose and answer questions about current standards, trends over time, progress made by individual learners, to track learners’ progress, and to set high expectations of all learners, no matter their starting point. Through early and systematic intervention, we are able to close the attainment gap between high attaining learners and the lowest.
At St Bede’s Catholic College, we involve families through regular communication and strong home school partnerships to ensure they know how to support their child(ren). There are a number of systems in place to support these partnerships, but we also believe in the impact of conversation and face-to-face meetings to strengthen the partnerships further. We actively target students of all abilities and backgrounds through a variety of mentoring programmes. By including families in these programmes, we reinforce our commitment to the principles of Catholic education and academic excellence, to ensure all students are challenged and given every opportunity to flourish and grow spiritually, academically and socially within a Christian environment.