Caedmon School

Our View

A peach of a school which combines respect and responsibility and still finds room for some classroom banter. You don't just send your child there – you wish you'd gone yourself.

Head

Since 2001, Tony Hewitt BEd MA NPQH (50s). Attended Gateshead Grammar School, then Leeds and Huddersfield Universities. Taught in four state secondary schools. Still a principal examiner in history – sets GCSE papers for AQA examining board – and is a secondary consultant headteacher. Has written nine GCSE history textbooks and teachers' guides. Married to Jenn, a special needs teacher. Two adult children. Enthusiastic, committed, with unstuffy sense of humour.

Academic Matters

With no GCSEs or A levels to steal the limelight, Key Stage 3 results are king. And, boy, does it show – Caedmon's results are regularly in top five per cent nationally. Across ability range, pupils judged to leave Caedmon a full academic year ahead of the progress they were expected to make on intake, which means a flying start on GCSEs at their next school.

Also working on 'demystifying' exams by offering volunteers a chance to take information technology and food technology GCSEs at 14. Impressive results from pupils – and even some teachers who were brave enough to sit the exam alongside them. School prides itself on doing well by less able pupils, including special needs. Intense monitoring means that any slip in standards is noticed and acted on. The school was awarded the Dyslexia Quality Mark in 2007.

Ofsted in 2005 reported 'no weaknesses' and head got an invitation to St James's Palace 'as head of an outstanding school'. 2006 saw the school selected to represent the youth of Great Britain at the G8 conference in St Petersburg – along with students from seven other countries, they advised the world's leaders, resulting in accolades from across the world. The visit concluded with meeting all eight world leaders and morning coffee with the Prime Minister at Number 10. In 2007 the school was selected for a visit to Pakistan and works closely with schools in the Middle East. In 2008 and 2009 the school sent representatives to speak at the UN in Geneva.

Games, Options, the Arts

Huge grounds including own wood for cross-country. £500,000 new floodlit Astroturf, the first in the town, completed 2004. New classrooms and changing facilities finished in 2007. A new music centre being built in 2009-2010. Some pupils opt for junior sports leadership awards and pass on their skills in primary schools. Others return to coach Caedmon's athletes in their lunch hours after they leave. Wealth of after-school activities, including clog dancing and boxercise.

Good music and drama, including two productions a year – though expect the unexpected. The sublime – performing a home-grown play on board the replica of Captain Cook's ship, 'Endeavour' – was soon followed by the ridiculous – Caedmon's own 'Stars In Their Eyes', with staff and parents doing their routines. These events regularly raise over £1,000 for school charities, including the sponsorship of a classroom destroyed in the tsunami four years ago.

Background and Atmosphere

Get up early, very early, to see what puts Caedmon in a class of its own. Its open school policy means that pupils welcome from 7.45am onwards to use the library, computer rooms, do their homework or just socialise. The last pupils drift home around 6.00pm. And still the 1960s building, above Whitby Harbour, is as tidy as your grandma's front room on Easter Sunday. So how do they do it? Largely through a very structured system of rewards and merits and efficient prefects given a heady level of responsibility which includes running the school council and helping to suss out job candidates – hard to believe they're still only 14. They even have their own commonroom.

And if you thought the days when house points meant anything in state comprehensives were long gone, Caedmon has found a way of making them doubly precious – the more points your house gets, the more balls it's awarded in the school's weekly lottery. And the prize? First place for your year in the school dinner queue. Priceless.

Pastoral Care and Discipline

Part of its success is down to knowing its pupils well, and while most would claim the same, it's small enough to mean it. Teachers pool knowledge of individual pupils at staff meetings – as much chance of disappearing in this school as of scooping a double rollover. Those who work hard are rewarded, those who don't are under the microscope. The head, who tours school several times a day, also does spot-checks on pupils' books. Bad behaviour means formal warnings and sometimes a phone call home to Mum. And the ultimate deterrent? Saturday morning detention in full uniform. 'You see this forlorn figure in white shirt and tie trudging into school? They don't do it again,' says head.

Pupils and Parents

Very supportive parents who appreciate that Caedmon goes that extra mile. Accessibility to head verging on saintly – gives parents his personal email address and mobile phone number: 'I know if they use that number, they're desperate to speak to me'. And a newsletter goes home every Friday. That's more contact than most adults have with their mums.

Entrance

Mainly, but not exclusively, down to catchment area. About 20 per cent come from outside in one of those rare instances where parental choice means you can actually get into a very good school without having to move into the grounds.

Exit

Most go to Whitby Community College, the local 14 to 19 state school. Some come out of private sector for their three years at Caedmon.