In September 1999 the school acquired a language college status under the DFEE technology college initiative. As a result there is much activity in the school in connection with funding awards, refurbishments of existing rooms and the provision of additional accommodation.
Who the school provides for
The school is an 11-19 catholic comprehensive school. There are approximately 930 pupils including 100 in year 12 and 13. The majority of pupils come from Keighley with a sizeable number from surrounding districts including Skipton and south craven, cullingworth, Howarth and Oxenhope.
The school has an excellent reputation in academic, social cultural and spiritual terms. It plays an active part in community life, which is supported and encouraged by the high level of commitment of teachers and parents. The school does a lot of community work; they have their very own community development officer whose task is to develop relationships between the school and the community. He is part of the permanent staff and the school is committed to give him a salary. A lot of charitable work is done for the community, the school cooperate with the community and the community shows the same cooperation back. It is used for concerts and social gatherings out of schools hours. There are pilgrimages to Grodge Patrick/Ireland, Lourdes helping the sick and needy. There are also annual school productions, fund raising activities to support the four feeds primary schools which are St Anne’s, St josephs, Our Lady Of Victory and St Stevens. Any students of these four primary schools automatically has a place at the secondary.
There are 57 teachers, which do not include the helper, technicians and caretakers. All these staffs have different roles.
The total funds the school gets on average each year is 2,396,392.00 and the total school expenditure is 2,522,225,07.
Teaching and Science
There are many people who use science directly in their teaching: Biology, Chemistry and Physics. There are subjects that have a lot of science in them but aren’t part of the science department (Geography, health and social care and sociology) and then there are other subjects which don’t deem to have ant science (history, languages)
The scientific argument is that ICT could be part of science as it uses science or it wouldn’t exist. ICT is a core subject in schools because it is used so much today but about 20 years ago it was hardly ever used. The first compute was manufactured during the World War 2 in the UK and in 1949 the transistor was invented to replace the valves. Since then and now there have been many changes between the computers including Miniaturisation, power consumption has dropped dramatically. Computers built with circuits and not humans. The reason the computers are much better nowadays is because the equipment is of a much better quality e.g. Laser to etch the accuracy is outstanding one laser can etch to a degree unheard of recently. It works over a distance of about 20 mms. The accuracy is like a laser being fired at the moon, hitting within 1 meter of the US flag.
