St. Joseph's Catholic College (formerly St Joseph's Comprehensive School) is a

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

Swindon Swindon () is a town in Wiltshire, England. At the time of the 2021 Census the population of the built-up area was 183,638, making it the largest settlement in the county. Located at the northeastern edge of the South West England region, Swi ...

, England. The school opened in 1958 and was the town's first Catholic school, offering education to students aged 11 to 16. Today it remains the only Roman Catholic secondary education provider in Swindon, but is open to other religions. It is a mixed sex school with c.1,370 pupils and has had

academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

status since August 2011. The school's core values are; Respect, Inclusivity, Equality, Nurturing, Growth, and Accountability.

Pupils

As the only Catholic Secondary school in

, it is culturally diverse, taking pupils from all over Swindon and the surrounding villages. There are five Catholic feeder schools in Swindon: Holy Cross, Holy Family, Holy Rood, St Catherine's and St Mary's. The school ceased to provide post-16 education effective September 2017, with the Year 12 class of September 2016 remaining as the final year of post-16 education, to leave the school in the summer of 2018.

Ofsted

The College was rated as good in all areas by

Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training ...

in its report published in 2014, and this assessment was confirmed at a short inspection in January 2018.

Governance

Jerry Giles, a former Ofsted inspector, is school Principal, having joined St. Josephs as Deputy Headteacher in September 2014. Jessica Higgins is the Chair of Governors.

Notable alumni

Andrew Pierce Andrew Pierce (born Patrick Connolly; 26 February 1961) is a British journalist, editor, author, broadcaster and political commentator. Early life Pierce was born in Bristol to an Irish Catholic mother and an unknown father. He spent the fir ...

, journalist, broadcaster and Consultant Editor of the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...

'' * Raymond Edward O'Sullivan, song-writer and singer, known as

Gilbert O'Sullivan Raymond Edward "Gilbert" O'Sullivan (born 1 December 1946) is an Irish singer-songwriter who achieved his most significant success during the early 1970s, with hits including " Alone Again (Naturally)", " Clair" and "Get Down". His songs are of ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Joseph's Catholic College Catholic secondary schools in the Diocese of Clifton Secondary schools in Swindon Academies in Swindon