Woodford County High School A GSG School
- Woodford County High School
High Road
Woodford Green
Essex
IG8 9LA - Head: Miss Gemma Van Praagh
- T 020 8504 0611
- F 020 8506 1880
- E [email protected]
- W www.woodford.r…dbridge.sch.uk/
- A state school for girls aged from 11 to 18.
- Boarding: No
- Local authority: Redbridge
- Pupils: 1,242; sixth formers: 346
- Religion: Non-denominational
- Open days: June dates TBC
- Review: View The Good Schools Guide Review
-
Ofsted:
- Latest Overall effectiveness Good 1
- 16-19 study programmes Outstanding 1
- Outcomes for children and learners Outstanding 1
- Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good 1
- Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good 1
- Effectiveness of leadership and management Good 1
- 1 Full inspection 22nd November 2022
- Previous Ofsted grade: Outstanding on 25th March 2009
- Ofsted report: View the Ofsted report
What The Good Schools Guide says..
Gets the best results in Redbridge. Also strong on value added. All the more impressive when you consider that many of the students speak a different language at home, with over 40 languages spoken between these bilingual (and often multilingual) girls. All teachers are subject specialists, whom girls say ‘can’t do enough for you.’ ‘The staff, from those in the office right up to the headteacher, really care about the girls and it’s that – more than any targets or pressure – that I think helps them succeed,’ said one parent. Peer support also helps – it’s in the very bones of the school, with ...
What the school says...
Woodford County is an over-subscribed and highly successful grammar school for girls in the London Borough of Redbridge. It has a fine reputation for intellectual, artistic and sporting achievements. In all of these domains and others beside, students are encouraged to explore their own potential, nurturing existing talents and interests and discovering new ones along the way. Proud of the fact that the school's community is a happy and cohesive one, we see it as a major part of our purpose to prepare young people for the roles and responsibilities which will be theirs as adult members of a wider society.
The school is housed in a building of great character, the former manor of Highams built in 1768, and it has extensive and beautiful grounds designed by Humphrey Repton. This setting, and the colourful mix of tradition and innovation in the activities which make up the school year, contribute to the school's very distinctive identity. ...Read more
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School associations
State grammar school
What The Good Schools Guide says
Headteacher
Since September 2024, Gemma Van Praagh. Qualified as a teacher through the Institute of Education, with her first teaching post at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in Hackney. She became head of drama, head of literacy and then director of creativity. She was seconded to The Hackney Learning Trust as a senior teaching and learning consultant, working on school improvement with all Hackney secondary schools. She then moved to Forest School as deputy head co-curricular, maintaining her commitment to the holistic development of young people through wider learning opportunities beyond the confines of the ‘academic’. She also secured a partnership with Hackney Empire, helping to extend and develop their outreach programme, supporting over 6,000 young people from disadvantaged and marginalised communities across east London.
Entrance
Massively oversubscribed for year 7 places, even though the school...
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Overall school performance (for comparison or review only)
Results by exam and subject
Subject results
Entry/Exit
Special Education Needs
The school’s SEN policy is in line with the Code of Practice. The school believes that all girls should be given opportunities which will enable each individual to reach her full potential and to make best use of her talents. There is a range of needs and we provide extension activities, support, or counselling as appropriate with the resources available to us. Whilst this is a selective school, and we are used to providing challenge for able pupils, we also have experience of catering for mild difficulties. If a child with special needs meets the entry criteria, we would look carefully at how best to meet those needs.
| 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 | |
| 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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