The Downs School is a comprehensive

Comprehensive school

A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...

 secondary school

Secondary school

Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

 in rural Compton

Compton, Berkshire

Compton is a village and civil parish in the River Pang valley in the Berkshire Downs about south of Didcot. It has a population of 1,521. The Pang flows through the village as a winter bourne, a stream that only flows after periods of unusually high rainfall.-Parish church:The bell tower of the...

, Berkshire

Berkshire

Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is a state school run by West Berkshire

West Berkshire

West Berkshire is a local government district in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England, governed by a unitary authority . Its administrative capital is Newbury, located almost equidistantly between Bristol and London.-Geography:...

 Education Authority.

Overview

The Downs has approximately about 1150 pupils, including 260 in the sixth form. It starts for students in year 7, who are aged 11. For the past 2 years it has been the highest attaining school in West Berkshire using the measure of 5A*-C GCSEs including higher passes in English and mathematics. The school is located on Manor Crescent. The nearest major town is Newbury

Newbury, Berkshire

Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...

 which is 8 miles away. Other neighbouring towns include Wantage

Wantage

Wantage is a market town and civil parish in the Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. The town is on Letcombe Brook, about south-west of Abingdon and a similar distance west of Didcot....

, Didcot

Didcot

Didcot is a town and civil parish in Oxfordshire about south of Oxford. Until 1974 it was in Berkshire, but was transferred to Oxfordshire in that year, and from Wallingford Rural District to the district of South Oxfordshire...

, Thatcham

Thatcham

Thatcham is a town in Berkshire, England 3 miles east of Newbury and 15 miles west of Reading. It covers about and has a population of 23,000 people . This number has grown rapidly over the last few decades from 5,000 in 1951 and 7,500 in 1961.It lies on the River Kennet, the Kennet and Avon...

 and Reading

Reading, Berkshire

Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

.
Within a short walk of the school is the Compton village shop and the large Compton recreation ground. It is just over 2 miles from the East Ilsley

East Ilsley

East Ilsley is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire.It is situated at in West Berkshire, north of Newbury very close to the A34 road which bypasses the village....

 junction of the A34.

The headteacher is Valerie Houldey.

It is also the last remaining West Berkshire Authority secondary school to retain its own swimming pool after St Bartholomew's School demolished theirs in Summer 2009.

Specialist status

The school is a specialist language college

Language College

Language Colleges were introduced in 1995 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in the United Kingdom. The system enables secondary schools to specialise in certain fields, in this case, modern foreign languages...

. This means that pupils are required to study at least one foreign language until they finish GCSEs, with the opportunity of learning others. The school has exchange visits

Student exchange program

A student exchange program generally could be defined as a program where students from secondary school or university choose to study abroad in partner institutions...

 to France, Germany and Spain. Sports tours are also annually organised. Teams have been to Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, Holland and in 2007 went to Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

.

The Downs recently became a science and maths specialism school to match its language college status.

6th form

The school has a sixth form centre of about 260 students. It is located on the ground floor of the new Graham Taylor building (GT). Subjects range from all the sciences to politics, economics, law and media studies. The current head of sixth form is Andrew Hartley. Its results at A-Level are exceptional for a non-selective state school.

External links

• http://www.thedownsschool.org.uk/ The Downs School website]