| Motto | The Best For All, The Best From All[1] |
|---|---|
| Established | 2000 |
| Type | Comprehensive |
| Specialism | Performing Arts College |
| Location | Bispham Road Bispham, Blackpool Lancashire FY2 0NH England |
| Local authority | Blackpool Borough Council |
| DfE URN | 119734 |
| Ofsted | Reports |
| Students | 900 |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Ages | 11–16 |
| Colours | Navy blue and yellow |
| Publication | Bispham News |
| Website | www.bisphamhigh.co.uk |
Bispham High School Arts College is a secondary school situated in Bispham, Lancashire, England, with a mixed intake of both boys and girls aged 11–16.
Contents |
Bispham High School was formerly an all girls school, founded in the 1950s.
Bispham was initially called Arnold High School For Girls, a girls' grammar school, having been split from local public school Arnold School by the local council. Arnold Girls amalgamated with local girls secondary modern Claremont to become Arnold-Claremont in 1975, before changing its name to Greenlands (grey and gold uniform, later pea green) in 1976. The school had an 11-18 age range until 1989, when Blackpool Borough Council separated from Lancashire County Council and moved A Levels to Blackpool Sixth Form College.
The school become Bispham High School (navy blue and yellow uniform), a co-educational secondary school, a specialist Performing Arts College and a Centre of Excellence for Performing Arts in 2000.[2] At the last arts college redesignation, the school was judged exceptional in every criterion.
Plans to merge Bispham and Beacon Hill (now Unity College) were discussed over a number of years. However, these were abandoned in 2010 after the Cameron Ministry scrapped the Building Schools for the Future funding upon which the plans relied.
In 2011, Bispham High affiliated with the Diocese of Blackburn.
In 2011, 86% of the school's students achieved a GCSE equivalent pass rate of five or more A to C grades. This is the best result in the school's history. The school has been acknowledged by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust as one of the country's most improved schools.[3]
The school holds the ICT mark, the Eco Silver Award, the Geography Quality Mark and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust’s Cultural Diversity Quality Standard Gold Award.
The school offers French and Spanish on the Modern Foreign Languages programme. It offers Food Technology, Resistant Materials, Graphic Design and Textiles as Design Technology options. It also offers a variety of BTEC course subjects to 14-16 year olds as well as the usual GCSE programme.
The school has firm links with most Further and Higher Education establishments in The Fylde.
A £6M project was completed in early 2007.[4] The project included -
The administration centre and atrium were opened on 7 November 2006 by retired Blackpool footballer and former Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire, Jimmy Armfield OBE.[5]
The school is currently working with the Royal Ballet School, London and possesses an Arts Council England Artsmark Gold. It is regarded as a centre of excellence for Dance and is widely acclaimed for its high grades in the subject and work within the community. Mrs Deborah Hanlon-Catlow (Head of the Arts College and Assistant Head Teacher) took second place in School and Community Involvement at The Teachers Awards 2004.
The school also has a successful gospel choir, Bispham High School Gospel Choir, under the direction of Margaret Adereti (Conductor), Neill Oldham-Campbell (Accompanist) and Sarah Bagot (Vocal Support).[8] In March 2007, the choir recorded a cover version of Crazy by Gnarls Barkley for the BBC 6 Music Hardchoral competition in which they reached the top ten.[9] The choir made its national debut when the song was played on the BBC 6 Music Breakfast Show over the Easter Weekend in April 2007.[10] On 17 April 2007 the choir sang their version of Crazy on BBC 6 Music during a live broadcast from the school hall, as part of the Hardchoral competition.[11] The choir have released two successful CDs (recorded by the school's performing arts technician, Mr Richard Moore, who has also recorded various other CD and DVD releases for the school in the school's own recording studio), with performances and contributions from current and former students of Bispham. They have also completed two tours in Europe (Germany and France). The French tour involved several performances around the capital city, including an exclusive concert in the Disneyland Paris resort.
|
|||||||||||||||||