About Silverdale School

Silverdale School, which opened in 1956, is an 11-18 mixed comprehensive school, serving the south-west of Sheffield with 1238 students on roll. The school is attractively situated on a single site in 17 acres of grounds and enjoys extensive views over Sheffield and the surrounding countryside. The school has an integrated resource unit for Profoundly Deaf children staffed by teachers from the Sheffield Service for Sensory Impaired Children.

In recent years the number of applications for admission to Silverdale has exceeded the agreed admission limit of 180 pupils. On entry these pupils are placed in 6 mixed ability classes. Retention of students from KS4 and throughout KS5 is excellent, and will be further enhanced by a Y11/12 transition programme.

By whatever measure, Silverdale pupils achieve stunning results at KS3/KS4. The school outperforms LEA targets; against national averages and benchmarked criteria the school achieves results well above average in all core subjects. Silverdale received School Achievement Awards in 2001 and 2002. Value Added data at both KS3 and KS4 demonstrates that Silverdale students are performing in the upper quartile nationally and against similar school bench marking.

A high level of A level performance has resulted in growing numbers of students joining Silverdale Sixth Form from other schools. The Curriculum has a broad range of AS/A2 subjects and level 3 provision is clearly a strength of the school. We have expanded our range of AS/A2 courses to include Psychology and ICT. This is coupled with a desire to develop provision that is appropriate to student needs within a vocational framework through collaboration with other institutions e.g. AVCE Performing Arts with High Storrs. The post-16 Enrichment programme provides a range of accredited opportunities to develop personal and vocational skills.

Over 90% of Y13 pupils access Higher Education; the school has a dedicated team of sixth form tutors who provide high quality guidance and one to one support for students applying to Higher Education. This is supported by links with a variety of institutions enabling students to sample aspects of the higher education experience, a PSHE programme including a dedicated HE day and parents evenings. The support provided by the school for students on results day and, if necessary, through the clearing process is comprehensive.

The development of ICT has been a whole school priority over the last four years and there has been a considerable expansion of resources with the integration of ICT into the curriculum across all departments.

The curriculum and administrative networks are supported by a network manager and two full-time technicians. The school is a partner in the Hallam City Learning Centre (based at Notre Dame School), receiving both training and additional facilities and working closely with the CLC in a number of projects.

Values and Beliefs

Central to the school’s vision is the concept of “community”. We believe every individual has a unique and valuable contribution to make to Silverdale’s learning community. Self-respect and consideration for others are fundamental values in achieving this. We believe a safe and secure environment, clear guidelines and the maintenance of high expectations and standards of behaviour, attitude and personal appearance enable all our students to achieve success. We actively encourage every student and member of staff to have a positive self-image and to treat others with fairness and respect. In seeking to achieve the vision of an extended learning community the school works to engage with the parent body, the local community and the wider communities of business and the world of work.

We are currently working to ensure that this concept is shared by the whole school at every level.

• Student Support Services. A range of support services underpin student achievement, we aim to ensure that these are systematically organized and deployed to target identified student need.
• Community Links. We encourage the involvement of parental groups who have had traditionally less contact with the school. This is being done through parents evenings, multi-cultural events and our Governers Community Committee.
• Curriculum. This is beginning to have a breadth that recognizes the diversity of our school population and provides opportunity and encouragement to every pupil to benefit from. The KS4 review has focused on Work-Related Learning provision and in ensuring sufficient flexibility when catering for individual student needs, attention is being paid to the 14-19 progression routes available to all our students. We believe that learning must be a stimulating and enjoyable experience if it is to be effective. We aim to challenge all our pupils by developing their learning potential to the full. Exciting teaching and learning, along with mutual encouragement and support, characterize the ethos of our school.

Silverdale sees itself as an outward looking school, equipped to develop the global citizens of tomorrow whilst recognising the immediate needs of all its learners and the local community.

Specialist School Status

Silverdale School has been designated as a Languages Specialist School from September 2005. Specialist status will impact on the languages curriculum of the school and will include:

• The further development of a range of NVQ Business Language courses at KS4 and KS5.
• An increased range of languages available for study, i.e. Italian, Chinese Mandarin and Community languages.

Specialist status will also impact on the whole school community and the partners we will be working with:

• An international dimension to the whole curriculum encouraging a global perspective to subject teaching, including international business links.
• Community language provision to support the identified needs of local business, health workers and educationalists.