Exam Season 2012
As exam season approaches, many of our usual routines may be amended.
This is to ensure students have a personalised programme in preparation for the examinations.
Click here to find out more and see the exam timetable.
News:11 Bulletins
Click here to view the latest News:11 Bulletins.
Important Dates
Friday 1st June –
Break up for half term
Monday 11th June –
Return to School
about the campus...
We are a great school!
Fantastic Results
This year our results have once again been outstanding. DGSC holds the position of being in the top 2% of all schools nationally in terms of what we can add to a student’s Key Stage 2 attainment.
This is a result of continuous personalised care in an environment which nurtures every child’s aspirations. These could lie in academic fields where we have links to many Universities, as well as partnerships such as the William Harvey project which offers work placements in medical environments.
Their ambitions could equally lie in vocational areas and we offer college and work placements for a number of our students in catering, mechanics and construction.
An ethos of care
We are a small pre 16 school which fosters a community spirit and sense of unity. Staff form highly positive relationships with their students, offering support in a range of ways and often going that extra mile.
We offer a package of guidance and support which was awarded the Investors in Careers mark in July and it is to our credit that we have 100% of our students carrying on into employment, training or education. Part of our care is the importance we place on a successful transition and we offer a wide range of activities so that students are comfortable and ready to achieve in their new school.
This year that has included a more able and talented week, an Olympic sports event and a trip to Moorhouse for the Year 6. A further advantage of being a small school is the small class sizes with no class being over 20. These can be smaller at GCSE, a key to our success, which allows effective personalised learning packages.
The Gilesgate Campus accommodates most of our work at Key Stages 3 and 4. There is a strong focus on generating a positive climate for learning based on the following core values:
- People matter
- Learning is best achieved in partnership
- People can be developed
- Achievements are worthwhile, diverse and valuable
- Learning is progressive and life-long.
One of our goals is to establish, for each student, the foundation upon which life-long learning will become a reality. We therefore personalise and enrich the curriculum at every opportunity.
A strong emphasis is placed on engaging with students in the learning process. They are encouraged to participate in a full range of curricular and extra curricular activities. They have a voice and they are encouraged to take the lead in a range of settings.
Students are fully supported by Learning Support Assistants, a Learning Mentor, interventions to boost performance along with access to information, advice and guidance as part of our extended services. We nurture our young people in a caring, challenging and aspirational way.
Opportunities for students
Our students have the opportunity to achieve in a variety of forums. Our large sixth form offers students access to a host of subjects and experiences they would not normally have access to. Many of our students have visited Universities including York, Edinburgh and Oxford.
As well as the academic, this year our students have run Sports days for our feeder primary schools, trained with Manchester United and Sunderland and raised hundreds of pounds for charities of their choosing. Perhaps one of the most inspiring stories is the 7 year 11 students who raised funds to build a maternity unit in Tanzania then travelled to Africa to actually help build it.
Other trips have spread as far as New York, Morocco and Greece ensuring the sense of global citizenship so necessary in our changing world.
The Sixth Form Centre
With over 1200 students our sixth form centre is an integral part of our school. All our pre 16 students are guaranteed a place at the sixth form which offers over 30 courses to suit a range of needs. Praised as being an ideal stepping stone from school to university, it shares our ethos of care and aspiration.
Our links to higher education are unparalleled and our high level of support and guidance guarantee our students success.
Visit the Durham Sixth Form Centre website...
Outstanding staff
In July DGSC was awarded CPD Mark accreditation. This identifies the professional development we offer our staff as being outstanding. For our students to attain outstanding results then our teachers must also aspire to that level, and they do.
As part of the staff development programme we offer a Masters in Education, research work is a regular occurrence and we have close ties to both Newcastle and Durham University.
As part of our ethos that people matter we invest heavily in the development of our staff as well as offering many development opportunities to our parents.
Durham Gilesgate Sports College