The Charles Dickens School is a

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

secondary modern school A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Schools of this type continue in Northern Ireland, where they are usuall ...

located in Broadstairs in the English county of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. The school is named after

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

, the 19th-century writer and social critic. It is one of six non-selective schools on the Isle of Thanet, physically isolated corner of Kent. The Charles Dickens School is part of the Barton Court Academy Trust (BCAT).

History

Following an Ofsted report of 2011 which found The Charles Dickens School generally overall Grade 2 'Good', in 2014 it was judged Grade 4 'inadequate' and placed in '

Special measures Special measures is a status applied by regulators of public services in Britain to providers who fall short of acceptable standards. In education (England and Wales) Ofsted, the schools inspection agency for England and some British Overseas Ter ...

' with ongoing monitoring inspections. The school received external support by leaders from St George's Church of England Foundation School. This ceased at the end of July 2016. The executive headteacher and her colleagues from St George's were credited with have driven rapid improvement at The Charles Dickens School, but against expectations, the GCSE result were again poor. The headteacher resigned. However the school remained popular with parents and oversubscribed. In March 2017 it became an academy and was transferred to the Barton Court Academy Trust

Other Thanet Schools

King Ethelbert School King Ethelbert School is a mixed secondary school located in Birchington-on-Sea, Kent, England. A wide variety of subjects are available at GCSE level. Facilities The school was one of the last to benefit from the Building Schools for the Fu ...

* St George's Church of England Foundation School * Ursuline College, Westgate-on-Sea *The Charles Dickens School * Hartsdown Academy *

The Royal Harbour Academy The Royal Harbour Academy is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form located over two sites in Ramsgate in the English county of Kent. The school was formed in September 2015 from the merger of The Ellington and Hereson School located o ...

Park Crescent Academy A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are green spaces set aside for recreation inside towns and cities. N ...

(opening soon)

Description

The Charles Dickens School is a 1100 pupil 11-16 academy in Kent. Kent retains a selective system where pupils sit an eleven-plus test. Pupils who pass the test go to the Grammar school and Charles Dickens takes pupils who haven't. The school is in Broadstairs, on the Thanet peninsula 30 km from other centres of population. Thanet is surrounded on three sides by water. The school has difficulties in recruiting and retaining Teachers. it follows the

Thinking Schools The Thinking Schools Academy Trust is a multi-academy trust serving a family of schools mainly in the Medway authority. The Trust bases its philosophy on the work of Bob Burden and the University of Exeter Postgraduate School of Education. The s ...

philosophy. It offers

GCSEs The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...

and BTECs as programmes of study for pupils. The current metric, is success in the

Progress 8 benchmark The Progress 8 benchmark is an accountability measure used by the government of the United Kingdom to measure the effectiveness of secondary schools in England. It bands pupils into groups based on their scores in English and mathematics during t ...

subjects.

Academics

Virtually all maintained schools and academies follow the

National Curriculum A national curriculum is a common programme of study in schools that is designed to ensure nationwide uniformity of content and standards in education. It is usually legislated by the national government, possibly in consultation with state or other ...

, and are inspected by Ofsted on how well they succeed in delivering a 'broad and balanced curriculum'.

Key Stage 3

The school has decided that Key Stage 3 in 2020 contains years 7, 8 . There are 3 learning pathways, that offer appropriate level courses for all students: # The

English Baccalaureate The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is a school performance indicator in England linked to the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) results. It measures students' attainment by calculating an average score from specified subject grades. ...

(EBacc), “Grammar Stream” pathway. These are the only students to be offered a language- and thus the only students that will be eligible for Progress 8. # The “Main” pathway # The “Secondary Ready” pathway that does additional work on supporting numeracy and literacy ""It is important that every student follows the most appropriate learning pathway that meets their needs and reflects their prior attainment and progress to date. The learning pathway should provide sufficient pace and challenge to learning and reflect the student's individual interest, talents and academic ability. All pathways provide each student with a broad and balanced curriculum at an appropriate pace and pitch of learning to ensure all students make expected or more than expected progress at KS3."

Key Stage 4

The three level approach is continued, the pathways are now called the EBacc, the main and the technical. Every student follows the most appropriate learning pathway that meets their needs in KS5 and in the future and reflects their prior attainment and progress to date. The learning pathway should provide sufficient pace and challenge to learning and reflect the student's individual interest, talents and academic ability, naturally the final programme of study chosen needs to be broad, balanced, relevant and enjoyable. It also meets the statutory requirements and adds to the school performance measures. To achieve an EBacc, students must gain a GSCE grade 9-5 in six subjects, a modern foreign language- in this case Spanish, the core subjects of Maths, English Language, two science, one of which may be computing and then history or geography which are referred to as a humanity. The EBacc pathway also studies English Literature, and two other academic or vocational subjects. The main pathway studies a core of mathematics, English Language and Literature, combined Science (two GCSEs), and one subject from Geography or History. They study 3 additional options. The technical pathway study a core of mathematics, English Language and Literature, combined Science (two GCSEs) with 3 options, and additional mathematics and English.

References

External links

The Charles Dickens School official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Charles Dickens School Secondary schools in Kent Academies in Kent