We love the fact that so many of our young people display a voracious appetite for life. Their seven years in our community is highly formative. We pride ourselves in being able to offer unparalleled curriculum breadth which ensures that every child has an accessible and appropriately challenging route to the best possible destination.
Year on year, more students go to the top (Russell Group) universities. Many join us with their sights set on excellence, having chosen Poole High over the unsavoury clamour for cliff-edge, selection testing. We are genuinely comprehensive, and genuinely inclusive - our demography unapologetically reflects society. Being nurtured in an ethos of excellence ensures that our students develop the rounded social skills they need to thrive into adulthood. This is why both the ‘stay-on’ rate and success rate at university is so high for our students.
Students are happy here and they grow up slowly. The school gates mark the entry point to an oasis – where our values matter. Every morning, the wave of staff in their yellow jackets gathers with a smile to welcome our young people. We are dogged however about the slightest whiff of an attitude which could dilute the kindness, politeness, emotional maturity and work ethic which is part of the rhythm of our day.
Learning here is sacrosanct. All students practise the learning habits they are taught from their arrival. These are developed with increasing sophistication over a seven-year journey so that students have both the toolkit and the skills to sculpt the learning needed in any university or future profession.
Young people love being at Poole High School because it’s a great place to try out new things and to test themselves with new cultural, physical, artistic and social experiences – the curricular and enrichment opportunities are simply vast.
Whatever the stage of any child in their seven-year narrative at Poole High School or beyond, their experience of learning and growth is epitomised in the terms:
Valued, Inspired, Empowered.