Latest news - Saturday 28 January 2012

Another Good OfSTED grading for Dawlish Community College

Dawlish Community College is delighted to announce that in an inspection by OfSTED shortly before Christmas the College achieved a "Good" grading.

The College was inspected in the two areas of Student Achievement and the College's capacity to continue the recent significant improvements that we have made. The College is proud to report that we achieved a "Good" grading in both categories. The inspector was full of praise for the College as indicated by the following quotes;

"Having considered all of the evidence, I am of the opinion that at this time the college has made good progress in making improvements and good progress in demonstrating a better capacity for sustained improvement.

"There has been a rapid and sustained rise in the proportion of students achieving higher grades in GCSE examinations"

"Development of provision for students to practice and improve their literacy skills in subjects other than English is progressing well under the direction of the 'literacy across the curriculum' management group"

"… the review of the whole scope of the curriculum means it takes much better account of the learning strengths and preferences of this group of students, particularly for those in Key Stage 4"

"…… the college now provides an improved choice of subjects within four different pathways of study that can be highly personalised for individual students. As part of the applied and vocational pathways, students can elect to participate in accredited courses that give them introductions to, for example, engineering, construction trades, hairdressing and catering"

"The college's specialist status in technology has helped to ensure that students have access to a wide range of accredited courses. For example, food technology and catering are also available as vocational qualifications as well as at GCSE and AS levels."

The full report can be found on the school's website alongside the College's last inspection report for Modern Languages which was also graded as "Good" in July 2011.

Dawlish Community College Principal, Andrew Davis commented, "We are very pleased with another "Good" judgment on the College by OfSTED. We feel this reflects the hard work that students are putting in, alongside an incredibly skillful, dedicated and committed team of staff.

The College has made very impressive progress in the last two years, particularly with regard to examination results, and we are confident that this year will, once again, see our Year 11 students beat all previous GCSE records.

May I take this opportunity to thank our parents and carers for their continued support of the College and assure them that we will not become complacent but will continue to relentlessly strive to get the very best results possible for their children."

Dawlish Community College Technology Specialism Awards

The College hosted it's third Specialism Awards ceremony where students from across the College received individual recognition for their performance within the specialism curriculum areas of Mathematics, Science and Design Technology.

The awards were presented by Dr Anna Nicholson, (a former student of the College), who also presented a brief overview of her own academic and career journey. Dr Nicholson is an excellent example of the calibre of gifted and talented students at the College and illustrates the great job the College can do in catering for students of all needs. Indeed she is one of a large number of our students who have very successful academic careers after their time at many good universities including most recently Ben Whitlock at Oxford University.

During her presentation, Dr Nicholson reinforced to the students, the importance of commitment, resilience and self-belief - all key attributes, which she believes significantly impact on personal success.

The thirty award recipients ranged from Year 7 to Year 11 students - all of which had been nominated by the College's Faculty Team Leaders for their high performance within the Specialism curriculum areas over the 2011 Autumn Term.

During the ceremony the students received both a certificate and trophy, with an additional cup presented to the two students nominated for their overall Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 outstanding Specialism performance.

Lin Caunter, Assistant Principal and Director of College Specialism, not only praised the students for their excellent achievements, but also thanked them for being great ambassadors of the College. In addition, she also congratulated all students for their high performance across all curriculum areas; which is reflected in the continuing upward academic performance indicators of the college and the December 2011 'good' rated Ofsted report.

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