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The Paragon School

Ages 3 - 11

Prior Park Gibraltar

Ages 11- 18

Prior Park College

11-18 Co-educational Christian school in the Catholic tradition

Part of the Prior Park Schools Family

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The Paragon School

Ages 3 - 11

Prior Park Gibraltar

Ages 11- 18

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GCSE Subjects

A student working on a smart board in his GCSE Business lesson

At Prior Park, we build an individual GCSE curriculum around each student, offering our young people considerably more choice about what they study than the vast majority of other schools.

This is driven by our philosophy of creating young people who are happy and successful, in that order. It means students here don’t feel on a treadmill at GCSE – they enjoy their learning, and they excel because of that, with Prior students frequently gaining grade percentages that rival extremely academically selective schools, and often with much stronger value-added*.

Most students study nine GCSEs, almost 70% of which are students’ own choices.

*Value-added is a measure of students’ performance versus similar ability students in other schools. At Prior Park, GCSE students frequently attain over a whole grade better across all their subjects compared to similar ability students in other schools.

Prior Park's GCSE Pathway 

All students take the Core Essentials:

  • English (Language and Literature) or English as an Additional Language
  • Maths
  • Non-examined: Games, PSHE, Core RE

Then, students are free to select six Optional Subjects.

Guidance, Support and Themes
We will help guide each student through the process of choosing their GCSE subjects during the Lent term of Year 9. Students will have detailed discussions with their tutors and Housemasters/mistresses before making their initial choices, which are then reviewed by their teachers and Prior's Senior Leadership Team.

We encourage our students to choose subjects in which they have a keen interest. Students need to work consistently hard for two years in order to succeed at GCSE. Some subjects may require more coursework than others; some subjects will be practical as well as theoretical. Students should also think about how well suited their skills and talents are to each subject and if their intended A Level choices/university degree (if known) has particular requirements.

As a general rule during our advice and subsequent review, we look for each student’s programme (including their Core Essentials and Optional Subjects) to address – at least once – each of these general themes:

Core Essentials

Optional Subjects