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  • The Cherwell School
    Marston Ferry Road
    Oxford
    Oxfordshire
    OX2 7EE
  • Head: Mr Chris Price
  • T 01865 558719
  • F 01865 311165
  • E [email protected]
  • W www.cherwell.oxon.sch.uk
  • A state school for boys and girls aged from 11 to 18.
  • Read about the best schools in Oxford and Oxfordshire
  • Boarding: No
  • Local authority: Oxfordshire
  • Pupils: 2,019; sixth formers: 652
  • Religion: Non-denominational
  • Review: View The Good Schools Guide Review
  • Ofsted:
    • Latest Overall effectiveness Outstanding 1
      • 16-19 study programmes Outstanding 1
      • Outcomes for children and learners Outstanding 1
      • Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding 1
      • Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding 1
      • Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding 1
    • 1 Full inspection 19th October 2022
  • Ofsted report: View the Ofsted report

What says..

Diversity in evidence at every turn as students buzz around school, and although the cohort is largely (65 to 70 per cent) middle class, with parents working at the university, hospitals, NGOs and the professions, school also serves some of Oxford’s most vulnerable families and it’s all in a day’s work to integrate pupils arriving from overseas. Parents report ‘a significant number of issues caused by colourful characters,’ but in the main see this as...

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What the school says...

The Cherwell School is a high performing and oversubscribed specialist school in Oxford (1858 students on roll, including 515 in the Sixth Form). We have all the advantages of being a large school in that we offer a very wide range of curricular and extracurricular opportunities. However, our two sites enable us to create smaller and more personal units within the whole school. This makes it easier to know, support and value each student; in this school each individual matters to us.

We consider ourselves to be A Centre of Opportunity and we aim to make this a deeper reality for all of our students and staff in the years to come. Our aims are supported by our specialisms in Science with Mathematics and we are a Training School committed to professional development. We also hold Investors in People certification and the International Schools Award.
...Read more

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What The Good Schools Guide says

Head

Since 2016, Chris Price BA PGCE (40s). A local boy, grew up and was schooled in Oxford then read politics and international relations at Warwick before heading to the Manchester Institute of Education for his PGCE. A rare example of a head who has progressed from within, he was appointed at Cherwell as an NQT in 1992 teaching history, and over the course of over 25 years has progressed through the ranks of school teacher to headmaster.

Moderately spoken with no sign of ego and no snappy soundbites or corporate patter up his sleeve. A quiet, effective operator who, in his own words, ‘embodies the school’, commanding huge respect from his (excellent and dynamic) senior leadership team as well as pupils and parents, who describe him as ‘warm, present and...

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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

Many students at the school have special educational needs – physical, academic, social or emotional and behavioural. There is a learning base and a behaviour base on both sites providing support to students in a variety of ways. In-class support involves a Teaching Assistant being in a class to give help to students, who are thus enabled to keep pace with the rest of the class. In a few cases this support is for a particular student, but more generally it is shared between several. Small group withdrawal caters for a small number of students who need extra help with basic literacy, numeracy or social skills. Very occasionally a student is withdrawn for one-to-one work. Learning Support staff also act in an advisory capacity to staff in all curriculum areas, providing resources and strategies for students with Special Educational Needs. 09-09

Condition Provision for in school
ASD - Autistic Spectrum Disorder Y
HI - Hearing Impairment
MLD - Moderate Learning Difficulty
MSI - Multi-Sensory Impairment
OTH - Other Difficulty/Disability
PD - Physical Disability
PMLD - Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty
SEMH - Social, Emotional and Mental Health
SLCN - Speech, Language and Communication
SLD - Severe Learning Difficulty
SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty Y
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


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