Welcome to Cardinal Allen Catholic High School
A Specialist Maths and Computing College

Cardinal Allen is a progressive, exciting and happy school in which our students achieve outstanding levels of personal development. The students and staff recognise the importance of the school’s Catholic and Christian education mission and are committed to it in every way. We are all proud to belong to a school offering rich challenge and extended opportunities to learn within a caring atmosphere of support for our students. We are in partnership with Lancaster Diocese and Lancashire LEA. The Christian ethos of the school is reflected in its mission to support the needy and underprivileged.

The school is widely acknowledged as providing outstanding levels of pastoral care which are based on a secure knowledge of the unique talents of individual students. We rely on and receive excellent levels of support from our parents in our drive to help our students develop into rounded, caring and active citizens. Our core values are Christ-centered and reflect the traditional standards respected within our communities. In particular we endeavor to produce young people who show respect for themselves and each other; tolerance, courtesy and a high regard for those less fortunate than themselves. Because of this, our students are bright, cheerful, highly motivated and show outstanding attitudes to learning.

Our school is served in the main by 8 feeder Catholic Primary Schools situated in the boroughs of Wyre, Fylde and Blackpool Unitary Authority. These are St. Mary’s Fleetwood, St Wulstan’s and St. Edmund’s Fleetwood, Sacred Heart Thornton, St Teresa’s Cleveley’s, St John’s Poulton and St Bernadette’s Bispham. Some children travel from the parishes of St. Mary’s, Great Eccleston and St. William’s, Pilling both “Over-Wyre” schools. A number of children in each year group attended local County Primary Schools with places being allocated according to availability. We have been significantly oversubscribed for the last 3 years and we have raised our admissions number [now 165] to accommodate demand for places. Our neighbouring Secondary schools are Fleetwood Sports College and Millfield Science and Performing Arts College.

We are approaching redesignation as a Specialist School for Maths and Computing with confidence. Maths and ICT are very strong subjects in school befitting of this status. The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust have noted the high performance in GCSE outcomes on two occasions. The BECTA ICT Award in March 2009 underlined the progress being made at Cardinal Allen. The school’s Virtual Learning Environment via the Moodle platform is generally acknowledged as one of the best in the Local Authority. Specialist School Status has provided the general backdrop as well as the impetus for whole school improvement. In 2004 Cardinal Allen was awarded “Green Flag” status, the highest award possible as an “ECO School”. In May 2006 and June 2008 the school achieved a redesignation with the Green Flag following more stringent inspections.

The school looks good. Maintenance programmes and a planned refurbishment programme ensure that the pupils and staff enjoy good facilities which are well cared for. Building development in recent years includes extensions to entrances and administrative areas as well as major refurbishments of a number of classrooms. Pupils respect the fact that the school is exceptionally clean and they are proud of its appearance. Planned buildings projects include the redevelopment of a disused kitchen area which will become a school and community Music Performance Studio.

Yours sincerely

Philip Mooney
Headteacher