HARD WORK and commitment by both pupils and staff have meant Royds Hall High School and Specialist Science College has had a fantastic start to the new academic year.

It is still celebrating its summer GCSE results which saw every one of its year 11 students gaining at least one GCSE grade A to G, 99% gaining at least five grades A to G and headteacher Melanie Williams proudly revealing that 72% of pupils gained at least five grade A* to C (the government benchmark for schools), a 13% rise on last year’s figures.

“Our results show the real progress the school is making and it just reflects how hard the staff work, many going that extra mile to ensure our children achieve their very best,” she said.

This commitment to learning and achievement by the school has led to the introduction of a ‘vertical teaching system’ with pupils in the upper school working together on a variety of subjects and personalising their own learning which allows them to take GCSE’s early in years nine and 10 and change their academic course of study if they need to.

Although academic achievement is an important part of school life at Royds Hall in Paddock, it is also keen to enrich pupils’ experiences with a variety of projects and extra curricular activities.

The school has just linked with the Willy Brandt comprehensive in Cologne, Germany, and a group of modern foreign languages students will be travelling there at October half term to learn about the German education system and way of life.

The department’s leader of learning Brigitte Taylor is keen to expand on the breadth of languages which are spoken by students who study at the school.

It has an eclectic mix of students with 26 languages in addition to English being spoken in school. Over the last two years 15 students have attended with no English but speaking other languages.

The school’s ethnic minority achievement department supports 25 students both in and out of the classroom and one example of its exceptional work is Romanian brother and sister Ben and Daniela Rafila who gained A and A* in GCSE Italian last summer after arriving at the school with English as a third language.

Sporting successes have also been notable at the school recently with year nine student and Borough of Kirklees swimmer Fiona Finchett winning gold medals in the 200-metre individual medley and 100m breaststroke in the English Schools Swimming Association gala held at Huddersfield Sports Centre.

Several of the school’s year 10 and 11 boys have also trialled for the West Yorkshire school’s football squad and pupil Chloe Roberts has trialled for the West Yorkshire girls under 16s football squad.

Year 10 student Kirstin Dean has gained a place in the Kirklees Schools under 15s netball squad.

The school has also applied and been selected as a national creative partnership school.

This flagship government creative learning programme, uses artists and creative professionals to work with schools to raise pupils’ aspirations and achievements and use creative solutions to help with decision making within the education system.

Ms Williams added: “Our great results at GCSE have been a fantastic start to the new academic year. We are now looking forwards and upwards to the next 12 months to see where we go from here.”