A comprehensive school is a secondary school for pupils aged 11–16 or 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is restricted on the basis of selection criteria, usually academic performance. The term is commonly used in relation to England and Wales, where comprehensive schools were introduced as state schools on an experimental basis in the 1940s and became more widespread from 1965. They may be part of a local education authority or be a self governing academy or part of a multi-academy trust.
Ferndown is a town and civil parish in Dorset in southern England, immediately to the north of Bournemouth and Poole. The parish, which until 1972 was called Hampreston, includes the communities of Hampreston, Longham, Stapehill and Trickett's Cross. At the 2011 Census, the population of the parish was 26,559, making Ferndown the largest inland town in Dorset in terms of population, being larger than Dorchester.
Design and Technology is a school subject offered at all levels of primary and secondary school in the United Kingdom. It is used so children develop a range of designing skills and technology skills for example, using media to design their project. It first appeared as a titled subject in the first National Curriculum of England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1988.
Amersham School is a mixed secondary school in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. In September 2011, the school became an Academy. It takes children from the age of 11 through to the age of 18 and has approximately 1020 pupils.
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of education policy or curriculum choices in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns, and immigration policy, with regard to admitting foreign students and tech workers.
Greig City Academy is a mixed-sex secondary school in the London borough of Haringey. It has around 1,100 pupils on its roll.
Diamond Bar High School (DBHS) is a public high school located in Diamond Bar, California, as part of the Walnut Valley Unified School District.
Chiltern Hills Academy is a co-educational Academy School in Chesham, Buckinghamshire. It is a Church Of England school, which takes children from the age of 11 through to the age of 18. The school has approximately 700 students. It has Design Academy Specialist school status.
Sharnbrook Academy, formerly Sharnbrook Upper School until 2017, is a large, rural academy school located in Sharnbrook, a village in the English county of Bedfordshire. Built in 1975, the school now has over 1900 students and around 300 staff, and includes a large sixth form founded in 1978 of around 650 students.
Harlington Upper School (HUS) is a rural, coeducational upper school and sixth form with academy status in Harlington, Bedfordshire, England.
Port Credit Secondary School (PCSS) is a high school located in the city of Mississauga, Ontario, and is a part of the Peel District School Board. It was the first secondary school in Peel, celebrating its 100th anniversary in May 2019. It is located just north of Port Credit, Ontario. It is home to two Peel Region programs, the one of a kind SciTech Program and the Strings Program.
Wey Valley Academy was a coeducational secondary school with academy status in Broadwey, Weymouth, in the county of Dorset, in southern England.
Specialist schools in the United Kingdom are schools with an emphasis or focus in a specific specialised subject area, which is called a specialism, or alternatively in the case of some special schools in England, in a specific area of special educational need. They intend to act as centres of excellence in their specialism and, in some circumstances, may select pupils for their aptitude in it. Though they focus on their specialism, specialist schools still teach the full curriculum. Therefore, as opposed to being a significant move away from it, the specialism is viewed as enriching the original curricular offer of the school.
UTC Reading is a university technical college (UTC) that opened in Reading, Berkshire, England in September 2013. The University of Reading, Reading College and Oxford and Cherwell Valley College are the lead education sponsors of the UTC, while business partners include Agilent Technologies, CGI Group, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Peter Brett Associates LLP and Network Rail. In 2023, Ofsted marked the college as "Inadequate".
The Fakenham Academy is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form located at Field Lane Fakenham, Norfolk, England. The school offers GCSEs and BTECs as programmes of study. Pupils in the sixth form can choose to study from a range of A Levels and BTECs.
Cambridge Technicals are vocational qualifications, offered by Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR) in the United Kingdom, and Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) internationally; both are part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. These qualifications are intended for secondary school students age 16 to 18 who want to study a practical, work-related curriculum. In the UK's Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) a Tech Level 2 qualification is equivalent to a GCSE, and a Level 3 is equivalent to an A Level. The qualifications are designed with the workplace in mind and provide a high quality alternative to A Levels, supporting progression to higher education.
UTC Swindon is a University Technical College (UTC) in Swindon, England that opened in September 2014 for students of ages 14–19. The college specialises in engineering and is sponsored by Oxford Brookes University and Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells.
Nottingham University's Academy of Science and Technology (NUAST) is an 11 to 19 free school with STEM specialist status in Nottingham, England.
Chan-Jin Chung (정찬진), commonly known as CJ Chung, is a full professor of computer science at Lawrence Technological University (LTU) in Michigan, USA. He founded an international autonomous robotics competition called Robofest in the 1999–2000 academic year as well as numerous educational programs for youth by integrating STEM, arts, autonomous robotics, and computer science. He also served as the founding USA National Organizer of World Robot Olympiad (WRO) in 2014 and 2015. He also started the WISER conference in 2014. He is working on developing a computer science curriculum for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) with a support from National Science Foundation . His research areas include evolutionary computation, cultural algorithms, intelligent systems & autonomous mobile robotics, software engineering, machine learning & deep learning, computer science education, and educational robotics.
The rural dimension was an optional initiative in curriculum for English specialist schools applying through the specialist schools programme. The initiative added an extra "dimension" of curriculum meant to give specialist school students an expanded "awareness and understanding of the countryside as a living, working environment". It was introduced to first-time specialist applications in October 2003 and to re-designation applications in 2004. The rural dimension focused on rural schools but was also seen as important to all schools, including those in urban areas. Therefore, urban and suburban schools were also granted the ability to apply to the initiative. The specialist schools programme was discontinued in 2011. Since then, schools with academy status may fund their own rural dimension as a specialism. Non-academy schools can no longer provide the rural dimension curriculum as they are bound to the National Curriculum.
