Our Lady and St John RC High School : Background

This is a school case study based on work in electronics and control systems.

Our Lady and St John RC High School is in Blackburn, Lancashire. The average CAT scores of the pupils on entry to the 11 to 16 school is well below 100 although there is a full range of abilities represented in the pupil population.

There are 6 classes from 8 feeder junior schools and approximately 960 pupils in total.

The D&T department abandoned 'Resistant Materials' as a main focus area for GCSE some years ago and now concentrates on Electronic Products, which involves pupils incorporating a range of resistant materials into their products anyway - usually by creating cases in plastic or wood. 

Electronics is part of the D&T curriculum for all year groups and the success of the policy is reflected in the uptake of  'Electronic Products' courses in Y10 and the achievements of pupils in GCSE.

In 2001 there were 170 pupils Y10 pupils taking an 'Electronic Products' course.  The A to C pass rate in 2000 was 80+% (which is comparable with the English results) against the school average in all subjects of 40+%.