A number of students at Dyke House Sports &Technology College (Dyke House) are really excited about what lies in store when they finish school, having received a raft of impressive offers from some of the UK’s top universities.
One student has been offered a place to read Chemistry at Oxford while another has received an offer to read Natural Sciences at Cambridge.
Nor have other red brick universities been slow to see the potential of Dyke House students with firm offers received from Liverpool, Manchester, Portsmouth, King’s College London, Lancaster and Coventry. Closer to home, ten students have been offered places at Durham, eleven at Newcastle and four at York, including one at Hull York Medical School, subject to satisfactory results.
Additionally, four students have been awarded apprenticeships and one has received an offer from the Royal Navy.
Dyke House, which is sponsored by the Northern Education Trust, opened its sixth form just over two years ago, in 2014. It is already gaining a strong reputation as a sixth form destination after some wonderful successes for pupils in 2016, which saw the school’s very first medic, Beth Scott, taking up a place to study medicine at Newcastle University while Matthew Watson and Lewis Robinson, who both achieved a remarkable clutch of A-level results, took up places at Durham University to read Computer Science and Natural Sciences respectively.
This acknowledgment by academia of the calibre and potential of Dyke House students comes at a time when the school has been given permission by the Education Funding Agency to consult on widening its sixth form provision for the 2018/19 academic year. This would allow students from other institutions to join Dyke House Sixth Form providing there is an appropriate course of study and capacity for them. The consultation period for this proposal concluded on January 18 and the results of this are not yet available.
Executive principal, Andrew Jordon, is delighted with the success of the sixth form. He said:
“This is the first time in the short history of our sixth form that we have been successful with the Oxbridge process. To be offered a place to read Natural Sciences at Cambridge is impressive by any measure because it is a highly competitive course.”
“I believe the success of our students can also be attributed to the many aspiration-raising activities in which they have participated for the last seven years, such as our Brilliant Club and ‘aspirations programme’, both of which are instrumental in creating pathways to red brick universities and encouraging students to see beyond Hartlepool.”
“In terms of extending our provision at sixth form, we wish to work collaboratively with existing local providers to provide greater choice. At Dyke House we already offer 22 A-level courses, but if we all worked together, we could provide an even greater choice for students in the Hartlepool area so that they have a wider range of options and a really sound start to their future careers.”
Ian Kershaw, chief executive of Northern Education Trust, added: “This is wonderful news for Dyke House students and is indicative of the dedication of Andrew and his team at Dyke House. The school is certainly living up to its individual vision of ‘attainment and achievement through creativity, collaboration and character”. It’s a great start to 2017.”