Bishop Challoner Catholic College is a vibrant mixed 11-18 comprehensive school located in inner Birmingham. The school has worked in collaboration with The Prince’s Teaching Institute for several years. Four departments are members of the PTI Schools Programme.
Bishop Challoner Catholic College is one of the highest achieving comprehensive schools in the country. There is a strong emphasis on curriculum, with large numbers of students studying and achieving high grades in physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography and modern languages. This, combined with a wide range of sport, drama, music and art, ensures all our students, regardless of background, achieve excellent results at GCSE and A Level and develop the skills and knowledge to continue their studies at universities across the country, including Oxbridge and Russell Group universities.
Bishop Challoner Catholic College is an outward looking school. Their students, many of whom have otherwise had little opportunity to travel outside their neighbourhood, have visited Letshego in Africa as part of a student leadership international project, forged relationships with schools in southern France, travelled to New York to support the performing arts, competed in a range of sporting activities in Europe, Australia and Canada, as well as enjoying Geography field trips to Iceland. The Science department runs an annual trip to CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, and as part of the History department’s centenary commemorations of the First World War, students were involved in a four day tour of battlefields in Belgium and northern France, where they visited the area around Ypres and the battlefields of the Somme.
The college was awarded teaching school status in the first cohort of schools. It works with 35 secondary and primary schools and special schools within its teaching school alliance. As a leading sports college, it has extended relationships with many partner primary schools to support the development of teaching and learning to raise achievement and develop PE and school sport through the use of the Sports Premium. It has recently embarked on an exciting new project to train specialist primary PE teachers through School Direct. It is a hub school for a Science Learning Partnership working with the Science Learning Centre for Central England, providing high quality Science CPD for primary and secondary teachers. Staff from the school share their expertise with students allowing them to be involved in STEM opportunities such as designing innovative trainers and recently becoming finalists of the prestigious national Rolls-Royce Science Prize.
The school is at the cutting edge of innovation and is working through the National College to support primary and secondary schools with the national curriculum in developing excellent pedagogy. Bishop Challoner Catholic College is one of 32 schools that have been identified to lead one of the new flagship Maths Hubs and are known as the Central Maths Hub. The Maths Hub programme is coordinated by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) and the Central Hub is working with schools across Birmingham and the wider region, including Solihull, Coventry, Warwickshire and Worcestershire.
The hub, with support from a wide number of schools and other key operational partners, is establishing work groups to look at many of the key issues in Mathematics education from early years right through to post-16 and beyond. The school is also involved in three key national projects together with all other hubs including, managing a England-China research and innovation project which involves an exchange between primary schools in England and in Shanghai, and subsequent trialling of new methodologies in classrooms across the country.
Bishop Challoner also works in partnership with many national mathematics bodies such as MEI, FMSP, CIMT, NCETM to host and deliver aspects of professional development programmes to support schools in the region.
Most importantly, Bishop Challoner Catholic College cares about others. The students take pride in contributing fully to the life of the school and the wider world. This is evident through the many fundraising events that bring staff, students and parents together in raising funds for charity and contributing positively to society with a range of activities.