Our History & Ethos

Our GCSE & A-Level results are consistently outstanding, placing us very high in the national rankings. We seek to bring out the potential of every learner, actively looking for personalised strategies to enable everyone to harness their individual talents. Whilst many high performing schools focus on making their statistics favourable first, ours are a natural result of genuine individual success, which is a product of excellent teaching and a motivational climate.

With several hundred pupils, there are a wide range of opportunities open to pupils, to forge valuable friendships which enable them to support one another and delight in learning. Everyone is focused on reaching their goals, resulting in a visible synergy in lessons and study periods. Staff know pupils well and are able to provide excellent pastoral care, leading to our learners developing resilience, confidence and strong self-esteem.

Our teaching staff deliver a vibrant curriculum, selecting the best subject content and qualifications, combined with a rich variety of activities to develop pupils’ social, moral, spiritual and cultural knowledge. We take full advantage of our beautiful coastal location and easy transport links to the rest of the UK, which affords us a broad choice of extra curricular options and trips, to take learning beyond the school environment.

Students who board with us make St. Michael’s their home from home, studying effectively yet also enjoying our comfortable accommodation and leisure facilities. Our team of dedicated House Parents ensure that study time in the evenings is used wisely – it’s supervised, meaning that classroom learning during the school day is fully consolidated. Moreover, staff are on hand to support students’ wellbeing and welfare at all times.

Our community is centred on mutual respect for one another, which means standards of conduct and behaviour amongst our students are excellent. Family style values permeate every aspect of school life. It results in a happy and safe environment where everyone is able to focus on their learning, whilst also building the foundations for future success, resulting in a memorable education with a long lasting benefit.

We do this by assessing the starting point of every pupil, teaching effective lessons and measuring their progress frequently. We take care to recruit suitable staff who support all of these aims and actively safeguard our pupils’ wellbeing.

We do this by providing a range of teaching activities, school events, literature and experiences beyond the classroom, keeping an open dialogue with all pupils as they face challenges and anticipating how we can best support their development.

We do this by compassionately but systematically upholding a code of pupil behaviour and conduct which ensures that school life is as free as possible from unhelpful distraction, focused on learning and encourages tolerance.

We do this by providing meaningful reports to parents and guardians, in addition to providing feedback where appropriate either face to face, over the telephone or via email. Staff consider how to strike a successful partnership between home and school.

We do this by planning and delivering a suitably detailed curriculum, anticipating the inherent but sometimes changing needs of young people and adapting our provision to match. Through a mentoring approach, all staff have their performance assessed formatively throughout the year, in addition to the appraisal programme.