Oakbank School is a Foundation co-educational comprehensive school catering for students aged 11 to 19. It has just over 1800 students, of whom 250 are in our sixth form. We take in 330 pupils a year. Foundation status means that we are funded through Bradford LA but we are our own employers, run our own admissions policy, own our own land.
We are a Specialist Sports College. This means we have extra resources for developing sport in school and in the community, more teachers and more coaches able to offer a wider variety of activities. All this is in addition to the normal curriculum and not instead of it.
The school is on a very pleasant extensive site. It has a full range of facilities, including playing fields, an artificial turf pitch, sports hall, 2 gyms, drama studio, dance studio, music and practice rooms, design and technology areas, 13 science laboratories, a highly praised learning centre and many other specialist areas. We also have a specialist Learning Support Unit. We have a separate sixth form block.
Our specialist status has enabled us to set up a fully equipped fitness gym, renovate and extend changing rooms, create tennis courts and improve equipment. In 2005 we added a new vocational block and in 2006, a new reception and student social areas were added. The school is open daily from early morning until late into the evening. Many people from the local community make use of our sports facilities and our extensive extended schools programme. A partnership between the school, Bradford Council, SportKeighley and a number of other agencies, resulted in the development of an outdoor Urban Sports Facility on the school grounds, which was opened at the end of 2009 and is now extensively used by the local community.
In addition to our specialist status, the Oakbank School Sport Partnership has been based at Oakbank School since 2001. The Partnership consists of 5 secondary schools, 35 primary schools, 2 special schools, an independent school and Leeds Park Lane FE College, Keighley. Oakbank plays a lead role in the PE and Sport Strategy for Young People (PESSYP), which aims to improve the quantity and quality of PE and Sports undertaken by young people aged 5-19 in the Keighley and Ilkley areas.
