Park Community School

Secondary Maintained

Approach overview

Finding ways to mitigate the effects of poverty over a 60 year programme of educational and community action, our goals are: success for all through attainment, resilience and autonomy. We summarise our approach as being much more than just a school. We are a community hub offering a breadth of real world experiences to our students and a range of services to their families and the local community.

Signature practices

Real world learning through:
- Our design and print business
- Our smallholding where we raise livestock and grow food, and horticulture lessons for students
- Our catering business and the tea room and cafe we run
- Our construction hut where pupils can try bricklaying, electronics and carpentry
A year round offer for students, for example over 50 students were employed in the summer holiday
School as community hub: third party lettings, school activity year round and food bank and affordable shop supplied by our catering business
Employing and training our own staff: school leavers and former students
Using our businesses and community activities to support school finance

Why we joined the Next Big 10

Next Big 10 offers us the opportunity to work with other schools who see the school curriculum as a way to help children find something they love to do alongside teaching the basics we all need to succeed in life.

Chris Anders, Headteacher

We are passionate about innovating and doing what is right for our students to thrive as adults. This means being creative in terms of curriculum and assessment and exploring opportunities to do things differently. The Next Big 10 appealed to us as its values are also ours. Being part of this means we can collaborate with like minded educators, learn from each other and apply ideas in our setting that will benefit our students.

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