St Benedict's Catholic High School, Alcester


St Benedict's Catholic High School is a coeducational Roman Catholic secondary school and sixth form. It is located in Alcester in the English county of Warwickshire. The school is named after Saint Benedict of Nursia, the patron saint of Europe and students.
Established in 1963, it is an academy school overseen by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham and the Catholic Education Service. The catchment area for the school includes Alcester, Bidford-on-Avon, Chipping Campden, Evesham, Redditch, Stratford-upon-Avon and Studley.
St Benedict's Catholic High School offers GCSEs as programmes of study for pupils, while students in the Sixth Form college have the option to study from a range of BTECs, A-Levels and the International Baccalaureate.
St Benedict's became an academy in 2017, with the Holy Family Catholic Multi Academy Company. Also in the academy are the main feeder schools; Our Lady's Catholic Primary in Alcester, St Mary's Catholic Primary in Henley, St Mary's Catholic Primary in Evesham, St Mary's Catholic Primary in Broadway; and St Gregory's Catholic Primary in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Sixth Form

In 2020, the school announced that it would stop teaching the International Baccalaureate diploma due to lack of demand for that year. The school will begin teaching a mixture of A-levels and BTEC level 3 courses at the start of the academic year 2020–21. The sixth form building,which opened in 2011, is a separate building to the main school with 3 floors. The new library was constructed at the same time.

Ofsted Report 2020

After years of being rated an outstanding school, Ofsted rated St. Benedict's 'Required Improvement'. The quality of education, Behaviour and attitudes, Personal development and Leadership and management were all related requires improvement. The sixth form was rated 'good'. The inspection was carried out whilst the head teacher was absent. The report said that 'in some lessons their learning is disturbed by the
poor behaviour of other pupils'and that ' This mainly happens when they have cover teachers
or non-specialist staff.' However, the report pays attention to the fact that 'Most pupils at St Benedict’s are happy, confident and enjoy school.' The school was last inspected in 2012 and in 2007, in which it was rated outstanding both times. Previous inspections were carried out with different leadership teams and when the school wasn't an Academy.

Notable former pupils