St Paul's Catholic School, Milton Keynes

Ofsted reports

The school was inspected again in 2005 and 2008, and in both cases it was judged to be "outstanding".

The school was inspected in late 2013, and was judged as "requires improvement" in every category. The report was quoted as saying: "It is not good because; Students do not make consistently good progress throughout the school, particularly the more able. There is also variation in standards between subjects at GCSE level. Not all teachers have sufficiently high expectations and do not plan lessons which challenge students according to their assessed needs, particularly those that are more able." In a further inspection in March 2016 the school was rated as "good".

Key Stage 3

St Paul's Catholic School's KS3 curriculum has a format of six periods of 45-minute lessons, one 15-minute break and one 45-minute lunch (during KS4's period 4) on Mondays and Fridays. Eight periods of 40-minute lessons are taught on Wednesdays, Tuesdays and Thursdays along with two 15-minute breaks and one 40-minute lunch (during KS4's period 6). KS3 subjects include English, Mathematics, Science, ICT, Religious Education, Physical Education, Games, History, Geography, Art, Design & Technology, Music, Drama, PSHE & Citizenship and a Modern Foreign Language; which is allocated in year 7 from either French, German, Italian or Spanish.

Key Stage 4

At KS4 pupils make GCSE options. The options are grouped into 3 programmes; A, B and C. All Programmes have the compulsory subjects of English Literature and Language, Mathematics (option of Additional mathematics in year 11), Religious Studies, Games (Non-GCSE) and PSHE (Non-GCSE). Programme A offers a choice of 1 humanity (History/Geography), 1 Expressive Art (Art/Drama/Music/PE), 1 technology (BTec Hospitality/Textiles/Product Design/Engineering/Graphics/Electronics) and 1 Vocational Subject (Business Studies/Business Communications/Health and Social Care/ICT). Science in programme A has two options of either Double Award or Triple Award). Programme B has the same compulsory Subjects but with no Humanities or Technology, 1 Expressive Art and 1 BTec Subject (Health and Social care/Horticulture/Business Studies in 1st diplomas). Programme C is the same as programme B but has the option of either BTec Business Introductory or BTec Construction and the Built Environment Introductory, instead of the 1st diploma courses.

Key Stage 5

6th Form students have the option of 4 selected subjects offered during the year and is compulsory to do a course in General Studies and General RE. Entry to St Paul's is 5 GCSEs A*-C grades.

Banding

St Paul's structures its timetables with two bands (X and Y). Each band consists of four forms, making eight forms per year group. In September 2007 a 9th form was added to year 7 X band, this form has been added henceforth to every year group. In 1996, the year 8 intake had only seven forms, missing out on Neumann, however this changed back to 8 forms for the 1997 intake. The bands work form two to four consecutive periods of lessons. When X band has a single period of RE, Y Band has a single period of Science, the bands then switch lessons during the next period, such that X band has science and Y band has RE.

Form groups

The forms are named after patron saints of the universal church. X band: Angela Merici, Benedict of Nursia, Charles Borromeo, Maximilian Kolbe and Elizabeth of Hungary (recently added). Y Band: Thomas More, John Neumann, Teresa of Avila and John Vianney.

Faculties

The Form Tutors are given a tutor group through what teaching faculty they are in. Each year group has a faculty. The faculties are: Humanities and RE, Mathematical Skills and LS, Communication and Design, Languages and Expressive Arts. When a year 11 leaves, their faculty will go to the new year 7's.