St. Aidan's & St. John Fisher Associated Sixth Form

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The St. Aidan's & St. John Fisher Associated Sixth Form was created in 1973 as a unique venture in ecumenical education. The two schools, St. Aidan's C of E High School and St. John Fisher Catholic High School are both based on the South side of Harrogate, separated by five minute's walk. Its aim is to provide a Christian environment in which students aged 16-19 can fulfill their academic potential. This is achieved by pooling resources, staff expertise and the experience of the two schools for the benefit of all Sixth form students. The partnership has been used as a model for other associated sixth forms in Wolverhampton and Halifax and has recently been graded "outstanding" in an Ofsted report^[1].

The Sixth Form has increased in size dramatically since 1973 when with 70 students, the two sixth forms were too small to run separately. Today, with 931 students on roll, it is one of the largest school sixth forms in the United Kingdom. This allows it to offer a rich diversity of subjects, catering for a range of interests. Although the majority of students enter the Associated Sixth Form from the two stem schools, students join from a number of other schools in the surrounding area, most notably, Wetherby High School, Wetherby and Nidderdale Community College, Pately Bridge.

Following their time at the Sixth Form, the majority of students choose to continue their education at Higher Education.

1 Representative Bodies
2 Notable alumni
3 Curriculum
4 Specialist College Status
5 See also
6 References

[edit] Representative Bodies

The student bodies at each school elect their own representative body from which the school's Head Boy and Head Girl are chosen. At St John Fisher school this body is called the Congress (until 2005 it was known as the Cabal) and at St Aidan's school, the Senate. Both groups meet regularly to arrange social gatherings, charity events and to discuss issues relating to the student body.

[edit] Notable alumni

Thomas Leeming - A member of the MCC U21s Cricket team

[edit] Curriculum

The Sixth Form offers a comprehensive range of courses at GCE Advanced (A2), GCE Advanced Supplementary (AS), Advanced Applied and Intermediate GNVQ levels.

The range of options available has increased steadliy in recent years.

The Association enables the Sixth Form to offer a range of subjects far in excess of that which would be possible if the two schools operated independent Sixth Forms. Moreover, the Association has made it possible for students to select from different specifications in the same subject. For example, between 2002 and 2005 students could choose between the Edexcel and AQA specifications in GCE History.

The vast majority of students have lessons at both schools.

The courses currently offered are:

Biology
Ancient History (introduced in 2005)
Applied ICT (introduced in 2005)
Chemistry
Economics
English Literature
English Language
English Language and Literature
Fine Art
French
Further Mathematics
Geography
Geology (Introduced in 2004)
German
Government and Politics
History
Human Biology (AS only)
Law (introduced in 2006)
Mathematics
Media Studies
Music
Music Technology
Physical Education
Physics
Psychology
Religious Studies
Spanish
Theatre Studies

[edit] Specialist College Status

The component schools each have subject areas in which they have Specialist College Status. St John Fisher School has been awarded Specialist College Status in both Arts and Humanities whilst St Aidan's School has Specialist College Status in Science.