Why Meadowhead?
There is a very broad range of reasons why parents, young people and staff choose to join Meadowhead. Here are just a few we have heard mentioned in recent years:
- Meadowhead has a broad and balanced curriculum that allows all students to flourish – combining a rigorous and demanding curriculum in “traditional” subjects with strengths in sport, the arts, music and performance
- We have an impressive record of academic success at GCSE and A Level. For example, we were the top performing state Sixth Form in Sheffield in 2022.
- We have high expectations of behaviour, conduct and uniform (“Pupils behave very positively” - Ofsted) which sits alongside a well-deserved reputation for high levels of support and pastoral care. As Ofsted also wrote, our students are “confident, lively, interested and kind”.
- The school has expert, specialist teachers who go the extra mile. The school is a popular place to work and many of our staff spend their whole or almost all of their careers at Meadowhead – this stability allows for success to be built on year after year.
- The success of our Meadowhead Phoenix sports teams and our support for individual athletes is an attraction for many families. We offer a ground-breaking girls football scholarship programme alongside our well-established boys programme.
- Our state-of-the-art building offers specialist facilities in drama, dance, music, sports, design and the arts. The school’s light and sizeable atrium, the Rosling, is an impressive heart of the school where flags hang from countries that are part of our students’ personal and family histories.
- We build strong relationships with our community and as such we have very high levels of student and parent satisfaction: 97% of students would recommend the school to a friend (A Level Leavers Survey 2022) and 98% of parents (Y12 Parents Evening 2024) would do the same. Our status as a standalone academy means decisions are taken on site and made for the benefit of our students alone. All our funding is invested in the education offered by the school.
- We build a sense of belonging with each student a
member of a house. As part of Sharman, Douglass, Brearley and Pearson Houses, students earn reward points to contribute to the annual Cook Shield named after our founder Headteacher, Ken Cook. Students also compete in houses for the Sports Day trophy as well as other competitions.
- We maintain very strong connections with our alumni who regularly return to school to support its work. While not every Meadowhead alumnus reaches space as our most famous former student Helen Sharman did, but our current students benefit immensely from the wisdom, advice and networks that our alumni share with us.
- Our careers service is seen as a flagship in the locality and region. Rates of progression into employment or further education are very high. The careers programme is very strong and includes mock interviews, work experience and our annual Futures Week.
- We are a school with student leadership at its heart: students are expected to make a difference through leadership roles. The Head Student team in Y11 and Presidential Team in the Sixth Form are elected in an annual ballot and play a crucial role in shaping our school. As Ofsted observed, “students have a voice at this school”.
- A personal development programme: ensures Meadowhead students develop the key skills and attributes to “Make a Difference” in their
community. For example, in 2022-23 Meadowhead students raised nearly six thousand pounds amount for a diverse range of charities.
- A rich and diverse offer of after-school clubs, trips and events. For example, during the academic years 2022-23 and 2023-24 the school ran oversea trips to Washington DC, Iceland, Sicily, Cern in Switzerland, the WW1 Battlefields in France and Belgium, Villarreal, and Canada. There are over a hundred clubs that take place each week after-school. We also offer the Duke of Edinburgh Award to both Y10s and Y12s.
