About

Welcome to our website and thank you for your interest in Cantell School. It is a great honour and an absolute privilege to have been the Headteacher of this wonderful school for the past seven years. We are proud to be a heavily oversubscribed, inclusive comprehensive school with a student body that reflects the wonderfully diverse and vibrant local community.

In March 2024, we were judged outstanding in all areas by Ofsted. Whilst we are honoured to receive such an accolade, we must be clear that this does not define us. What makes us stand out in the crowd is the strength of relationships between our diverse student and staff body. It is one of the reasons why Cantell is a great place for students to learn and staff to work!

As founding members of the Aspire Community Trust, our family of schools are based in the vibrant and diverse City of Southampton, on the South Coast of England. Our trust is grounded in cooperative values: self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity. We believe in openness, honesty, social responsibility and caring for others. Our fundamental mission is to provide an exceptional learning experience for every student, enabling them to lead happy and successful lives now and in the future. We achieve this by setting the highest expectations, cultivating a no-excuses culture, developing a highly ambitious curriculum, providing inspirational teaching and offering life-changing opportunities through an incredible range of co-curricular activities, trips and visits.

At Cantell, our values, the Cantell Cs: Challenge, Creativity, Commitment, Cooperation, and Courtesy shape the way our community works together. Our staff work tirelessly to ensure that learning takes place in a culture of mutual respect and understanding. They go above and beyond every day to provide the best for our students, a commitment that has only strengthened through the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing us closer together as a family.

We expect exemplary student behaviour and attitudes to learning while recognizing that young people can make mistakes; it is through these experiences that they learn and develop both academically and socially. We believe that all students can succeed and exceed expectations by developing their Cantell Empower Skills: Leadership, Organisation, Resilience, Initiative, Communication, Independence, Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Over time, the strong partnerships we have created with local and national organisations such as the University of Southampton, Natwest, Hampshire Cricket and so many more are helping us to better equip our students for the next steps of their education, training or employment.

Our school is proud to be known as a happy and successful school and the school of choice for families in the local area. Our students consistently achieve strong GCSE results, leading to progress rates that are consistently above the national averages. This success is due to the hard work of our students, supported by a passionate, dedicated, and highly skilled staff team who strive to be the best they can be.

At Cantell, we are very clear that students only get one chance at their education. We know and understand that it is our moral imperative to turn that chance into a pathway to success, and our broad and balanced curriculum supports us to achieve this aim. This is complemented by our wide range of extracurricular clubs, and array of trips and visits, which ensure our students make memories and friendships for a lifetime.

I hope this gives you a flavour of what Cantell is all about. You can find out much more from our website, but, above all, I welcome you to come and see us in action. Please do contact us at headspa@cantell.co.uk or call us on 02380 516722 to arrange a visit.

Warmest regards,

Harry Kutty
Headteacher of Cantell School
Trust Leader of the Aspire Community Trust