St Aidan’s Catholic Academy is inviting Year 5 and Year 6 pupils and their parents and carers to visit the Sunderland secondary.
An open day and evening for prospective Year 7 students will be held at the Willowbank Road school on Tuesday 19th September.
Parents can visit the school between 9.45am and 11.30am and between 1.50pm and 2.50pm to watch lessons, speak to pupils and staff and have a tour of the school.
At 6pm, Year 5 and 6 pupils and their parents are invited to a short presentation, followed by an opportunity to visit different school departments.
St Aidan’s, which is part of Bishop Chadwick Catholic Education Trust, retained its ‘Good’ Ofsted rating at an inspection in June with inspectors commenting that if it had been a full, graded inspection, there was “enough evidence of improved performance to suggest that the school would be judged outstanding”.
The school was rated ‘Outstanding’ by the Catholic Schools Inspection too earlier this year.
Nationally, 24% of GCSE entries were awarded grades 9-7 (equivalent to an A*-A) in 2023 but St. Aidan’s boys significantly surpassed this at 30%.
St Aidan’s has also been prioritised for the government’s School Rebuilding Programme, which will see one or more of its buildings replaced or refurbished.
Headteacher Glenn Sanderson said: “The new build will provide St Aidan’s with a fantastic opportunity to bring together pupils from age 11 to 18 for the first time, in one state of the art building. This will have a transformational impact on the lives of our young people and the communities we serve.
“We’ve been working collaboratively with the wider Trust and several external partners behind the scenes for some time now and are delighted to be able to finally share this news. The new build will provide all members of the community a much-needed boost after the difficulties of the pandemic. It is great to have something exciting and positive to look forward to which will bring significant benefits to the local community for generations to come. We will finally have world class buildings to complement the world class education we provide.”
For further details about the open day/evening, contact: [email protected]