Subject Leader - Physics

Prestatyn High School is an authority maintained, English medium 11-18 mixed comprehensive school. There are 1707 on roll with 260 in the sixth form. The school continues to be oversubscribed and has admitted above its standard admission numbers in all of the last six years.

Pupils are from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds with around a quarter from relatively prosperous areas and a similar proportion from economically disadvantaged areas. Nearly 13% of pupils at Key Stage 3 and 4 are entitled to free school meals. Very few pupils come from homes where Welsh is the predominant language. Between 1% and 2% of pupils come from minority ethnic groups.

Pupils come from the whole ability ranges. Currently the school’s register of Special Educational Needs contains 256 pupils (13.9% of the school population). 46 pupils have statements of SEN (2.7%). The percentage of pupils on the SEN register has increased since the last inspection whilst the percentage with statements has decreased slightly.

Accommodation is at a premium with eight mobile classrooms having been added since the last inspection to meet the demand for places. Accommodation is generally good but heavily used.

The school has received a number of awards for the work it does. These include the Investors in People award in 2003, the Green Flag to signify us as one of the few secondary schools in Wales to be recognised as an Eco school, and five curriculum award from the Welsh Secondary Schools Assocation (WSSA) for various aspects of our work, and recently the Basic Skills Quality Mark.

Prestatyn High school’s mission statement continues to commit itself to being a community with high standards, promoting equality of opportunity and inclusion for all in the pursuit of excellence. It believes that every pupil should be entered for appropriate examinations and it strives to enable as many pupils as possible to return to the sixth form through the wide variety of courses offered. It prides itself on its caring environment and the structures it has created to promote this. It has set suitably challenging, specific and numeric targets to raise further the standards of achievement of all pupils and departments and expects further such progress in the future. The recent Estyn inspection report reflects the high esteem in which the school is held and sets the context for the further improvements planned.