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  • Parkstone Grammar School
    Sopers Lane
    Poole
    Dorset
    BH17 7EP
  • Head: David Hallsworth
  • T 01202 605605
  • F 01202 605606
  • E office@parkstone.poole.sch.uk
  • W www.parkstone.poole.sch.uk/
  • A state school for girls aged from 11 to 18.
  • Read about the best schools in Dorset
  • Boarding: No
  • Local authority: Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole
  • Pupils: 1,266; sixth formers: 329 (283 girls; 46 boys)
  • Religion: Non-denominational
  • Open days: November (sixth form); July (whole school)
  • Review: View The Good Schools Guide Review
  • Ofsted:
    • Latest Overall effectiveness Outstanding 1
      • 16-19 study programmes Outstanding 1
      • Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding 1
    • 1 Full inspection 11th October 2017
  • Previous Ofsted grade: Good on 17th December 2013
  • Ofsted report: View the Ofsted report

What says..

A wonderfully active music department. Over 250 students in various groups running the gamut from orchestra and concert band to strings, guitar ensembles and even hand chimes. International trip every other year, Salzburg being the last, where the band opted for Andrew Lloyd Webber numbers over the more obvious Sound of Music medley. As an oversubscribed selective grammar, the school expects high grades and self-motivation from pupils, although no suggestion of pressure from teachers. Homework demands refreshingly light. Pupils say…

Read review »

What the school says...

Parkstone Grammar School is an 11-18 selective girls grammar school providing excellent educational opportunities to girls from Poole and the surrounding area. We are a converter academy and have a collaborative Sixth Form with Poole Grammar School.

Please contact the school for further information about us or look on our website. ...Read more

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School associations

State grammar school

What The Good Schools Guide says

Headteacher

Since 2019, David Hallsworth BEd, previously deputy and then acting head. Educated in Bridgend, Wales, he entered education as a way of combining a career with a passion for rugby. First post at Bishops Wordsworth Grammar, Salisbury, teaching geography and PE. Progressed to head of department, then assistant head. Moved to Parkstone as deputy head in 2004.

Less than six months into his tenure, Covid was marching over whatever plans may have been underway. He says much time is now being spent on dealing with the ‘tsunami of mental health impacts on students, staff, parents’ wrought by the pandemic. He has rejigged staff positions with a new head of wellbeing and separate role created for mental health safeguarding.

He has also been working on a new...

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Please note: Independent schools frequently offer IGCSEs or other qualifications alongside or as an alternative to GCSE. The DfE does not record performance data for these exams so independent school GCSE data is frequently misleading; parents should check the results with the schools.

Who came from where

Who goes where

Special Education Needs

Girls identified as requiring SEN provision are supported through the work of the Learning Support Team. The School has a very active Learning Support Department, with roughly 10% of the school population identified as requiring additional support. The School firmly believes that each student should be given equality of opportunity to achieve her full potential – spiritually, academically and socially – by recognising the uniqueness of each individual and providing a rich and varied learning experience for all. Where required, girls receive individual learning support for a range of needs, including specific learning difficulties; emotional difficulties and physical and sensory impairment. The School has a history of excellent provision in supporting the varied special educational needs of academically high achieving students. Detailed records are kept of provision made and targets set where classroom intervention is necessary. The progress of all SEN students is monitored by the Learning Support Coordinator and provision regularly reviewed and amended as necessary. Parkstone actively encourages students to recognise and accept each other’s strengths and weaknesses and support one another to reach their goals. Although the majority of girls identified as SEN by the school are categorised as School Action and School Action Plus, when supporting an individual statement of Special Educational Needs, the School ensures that all prescribed support is fully provided and that a constant dialogue is maintained between students, parents, specialist teachers and external agencies. 09-09

Condition Provision for in school
ASD - Autistic Spectrum Disorder
Aspergers Y
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders Y
CReSTeD registered for Dyslexia
Dyscalculia
Dysgraphia
Dyslexia
Dyspraxia
English as an additional language (EAL)
Genetic
Has an entry in the Autism Services Directory
Has SEN unit or class
HI - Hearing Impairment
Hospital School
Mental health
MLD - Moderate Learning Difficulty
MSI - Multi-Sensory Impairment
Natspec Specialist Colleges
OTH - Other Difficulty/Disability
Other SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty
PD - Physical Disability
PMLD - Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty
SEMH - Social, Emotional and Mental Health
SLCN - Speech, Language and Communication
SLD - Severe Learning Difficulty
Special facilities for Visually Impaired
SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty
VI - Visual Impairment

Interpreting catchment maps

The maps show in colour where the pupils at a school came from*. Red = most pupils to Blue = fewest.

Where the map is not coloured we have no record in the previous three years of any pupils being admitted from that location based on the options chosen.

For help and explanation of our catchment maps see: Catchment maps explained

Further reading

If there are more applicants to a school than it has places for, who gets in is determined by which applicants best fulfil the admissions criteria.

Admissions criteria are often complicated, and may change from year to year. The best source of information is usually the relevant local authority website, but once you have set your sights on a school it is a good idea to ask them how they see things panning out for the year that you are interested in.

Many schools admit children based on distance from the school or a fixed catchment area. For such schools, the cut-off distance will vary from year to year, especially if the school give priority to siblings, and the pattern will be of a central core with outliers (who will mostly be siblings). Schools that admit on the basis of academic or religious selection will have a much more scattered pattern.

*The coloured areas outlined in black are Census Output Areas. These are made up of a group of neighbouring postcodes, which accounts for their odd shapes. These provide an indication, but not a precise map, of the school’s catchment: always refer to local authority and school websites for precise information.

The 'hotter' the colour the more children have been admitted.

Children get into the school from here:

regularly
most years
quite often
infrequently
sometimes, but not in this year

Who came from where


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