Education
See also: Category:Schools in Wirral (borough)When the borough was set up in 1974, it inherited comprehensive systems from the former County Boroughs of Birkenhead and Wallasey. In the part of Wirral formerly administered by Cheshire County Council, it inherited a selective system of grammar and secondary modern non-Roman Catholic schools and a comprehensive Roman Catholic school (St John Plessington Catholic College).
Until the implementation of the Education Reform Act 1988, education in Wirral continued to be organised in four areas; Birkenhead, Wallasey and the former parts of Cheshire known for education purposes as "Bebington" and "Deeside". However this Act introduced "open enrolment", allowing parents from anywhere in the borough, and outside it, to apply for a place for their child at any secondary school. As a result significant numbers of pupils from the former "comprehensive areas" attend schools in the former "selective areas" and vice versa. The distinction between different types of school was to an extent masked, as all secondary modern and most comprehensive schools were named "High School". As a further result of this Act, St Anselm's College and Upton Hall School, both within the Birkenhead education area, became the only independent schools in the country to become state funded grant-maintained schools, retaining selective admissions policies to become Roman Catholic grammar schools.
A further change came as a result of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which effectively changed secondary modern schools into comprehensives as schools were no longer permitted to select by examination failure. In summary, Wirral now has a state secondary sector made up of 16 comprehensive schools (of which two are Roman Catholic) and 6 grammar schools (of which two are Roman Catholic).
Ofsted publishes an annual list of schools that it has judged to be "particularly successful". Wirral secondary schools that have appeared in that list are:
- Calday Grange Grammar School (2001–06)
- Pensby High School for Girls (2000–01)
- Ridgeway High School (2000–01)
- St Anselm's College (1999–2000 and 2004–05)
- St John Plessington Catholic College (1997–98)
- St Mary's Catholic College (2001–02)
- Upton Hall School FCJ (2006-7)
- West Kirby Grammar School (1994–95)
- Wirral Grammar School for Girls (1997–98 and 2003–04)
- Woodchurch High School Engineering College (1998–99 and 2004–05)
Ofsted has not inspected any of Wirral's independent schools.
Read more about this topic: Metropolitan Borough Of Wirral
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