History
St. Cuthbert’s School was founded in 1881 and was a Grammar School for Catholic boys in the North-East until 1977. In that year it became a Comprehensive School and has operated as such since then. In September 2003 St. Cuthbert’s was designated as a Specialist Science College. Throughout its history St. Cuthbert’s has maintained an excellent reputation for its high standards in academic work, in sport and in other extracurricular activities. That reputation continues with improving results in public examinations, regular appearances (and victories!) in national finals in athletics, cross-country and soccer and the winning of the Daily Mail Award for Best Amateur FIlm in 2003 - the third time in ten years that the school’s Film Club has won this international award.
Certain features of the school go back a long way. One which is particularly noticeable is our school uniform: the maroon blazer and well-known school badge can be seen on even the oldest photographs. A number of our current staff went to the school as pupils and they help to retain our links with the school’s history and its traditional values.
Recent Developments
Specialist Status – High Performing Specialist School
St Cuthbert's gained Specialist status as a Science College from September 2003. We have taken the opportunity to develop our staffing, resources and our learning and teaching strategies in the specialist subject areas of Science and Mathematics, supported by ICT. We play a leading role in the development of Science education within Newcastle and the wider region through our links with the University of Newcastle, the Local Authority and our involvement in planning for Science City. Our Science School Development Plan commits us to collaborating with secondary and primary partners and our community links now include work with Procter and Gamble, Rolls Royce and TDR with a strong international link now established with University High School Melbourne, who are world leaders in provision for able, gifted and talented students.
St Cuthbert’s was designated a High Performing Specialist School due to our 2007 public examination results and our 2007 OFSTED inspection. We have gained Languages College status as our second specialism, with effect from April 2008.
New Build and Refurbishment of Upper School (Years 9-13)
We were also successful with a bid to the DCSF for major improvements to our Upper School site in December 2002. Building work began in July 2004 with a new block housing seven Science laboratories, three ICT rooms and four Design Technology rooms operational since September 2005. Since late 2006 the whole of the Upper School site has been refurbished, with updated suites of subject rooms now in place.
BSF and 2007 Inspections
St Cuthbert’s is also part of Newcastle’s Building Schools for the Future bid. Plans have been submitted and planning with the appointed team is under way to enable the completion of the redesign of our site. This will involve the unification of the site - bringing Lower School and Upper School students together - enabling us to be more flexible with pupil groupings than is currently the case.
St Cuthbert’s was inspected by OFSTED in January 2007 and we also underwent our Section 48 Inspection of the Catholic Life of the School and RE in early March. Both inspections describe a good school with a range of outstanding features and outstanding capacity to improve.
