City Academy Bristol: A Vibrant & Diverse Secondary School in Redfield

If you are currently looking into secondary schools for your child in or near the Redfield area of Bristol, City Academy Bristol may be of interest.

City Academy is a mixed gender secondary school with Academy status, the first Academy to be opened in the South-West. It has places for 190 students in each year group and also has a superb post-16 centre which can accommodate 350 students.

2015 has been a year of great progress at City Academy.

Firstly, this year the school celebrated its best ever GCSE results yet: 42% of students achieving grades A* – C in Maths and English – a 2% increase from last year – and, GCSE Maths results also improved by 10% with 57% of students achieving at least a Grade C.

This year 73% of students also made at least expected progress in English during their time at school.

City Academy’s recent academic success does not stop here, however. This year, more students went on to university than ever before in the school’s history.

Much of the school’s progress in 2015 is down to Jon Angell, the new Principal of City Academy.

Since being appointed interim Principal of the school in March this year and later full-time principal in August, Jon has implemented a new vision and ethos of “Every Student a Graduate – Every Student a Leader”.

Of course, academic success cannot be attained and maintained by good teaching alone and parents play a vital role in a young person’s education. As such, City Academy involves parents in its students education through regular parents’ evenings and weekly Parent Drop-ins on Monday mornings.

Parents’ evenings and Drop-ins are further backed up by monthly parent forums about particular topics including having subject teachers talk about their areas and the school also regularly maintains contact with parents through emails and telephone calls.

Jon has also introduced a Principal’s bulletin which he writes and publishes on the school website every fortnight.

The school has links not only with local parents, but with the wider community and has a community lead named Aisha Thomas who represents the school on several neighbourhood forums and parent groups.

And, as well as the school website, the school has its own Twitter account to share the latest news and information to the local community.

City Academy also runs a Shine Reading Project whereby local volunteers regularly visit the school to listen to children’s reading. The project runs throughout the academic year and in June certificates of progress are awarded to the children who have taken part.

Education provided to students at City Academy is not only confined to the classroom and regular day trips and residential trips are on offer. For example, trips include community walks in the local area, visits to London and Cornwall and even further afield to the Gambia and Madrid!

Jon Angell explains his long-term aims for the school:

“I wish to make City Academy a securely good school that any parent would be happy to send their child to and to make it a school that the local community can be proud of.”