John Ruskin School - A community comprehensive in Coniston Cumbria

BE YOU

Whether it's a festive carol service, summer ceilidh, Christmas shoeboxes or creating flower planters for the village, JRS is at the heart of the local community.

BE RESPECTED

At John Ruskin School students are trusted with positions of responsibility around the school and learn to both respect and challenge the views of others in a thoughtful way.

BE READY FOR YOUR FUTURE

Excellent GCSE results alongside well-developed collaborative, creative and social skills, plus the opportunity for every child to have work experience, helps us to prepare our students for their future.

BE VALUED

At John Ruskin School every child is known and supported to achieve their very best; we value their individuality and our students are inclusive and welcoming.

BE RESILIENT

Students at John Ruskin School develop resilience in the classroom and beyond. They learn how to cope emotionally with the demands of work and relationships with their peers. Through events such as the annual fell race or the Duke of Edinburgh programme, they learn stamina and determination to succeed.

INSPIRATIONAL SETTING

Set in one of the most beautiful locations in the Lake District, John Ruskin School maximises the student learning experience by taking advantage of its inspirational setting for school activities such as field trips.

Head Teacher’s Welcome

John Ruskin School is a fully comprehensive, oversubscribed 11 – 16 community school situated in beautiful surroundings. We provide education in the heart of the Lake District for our catchment communities of Coniston, Hawkshead, Langdale and Broughton. However, many students from other areas also choose to travel to our school. It is a thriving community that promotes high levels of academic and personal achievement for its students.

Parents are hugely supportive of John Ruskin School and many families have seen generations pass through our doors. It is a school that knows its students very well and uses that understanding to encourage, challenge and push them to achieve the very best they can. Whether that is through their academic studies or making the most of the school’s unique location through experiences like the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme, the annual fell race or the Big JRS Picnic, John Ruskin School places a real importance on developing the character of our young people so they are ready to become citizens of the world.

The school has been very successful in terms of GCSE outcomes in recent years, (links to the school performance tables and our most recent Ofsted report are on the parent information page). We are proud of our students’ achievements at GCSE, but also in the other aspects of life at John Ruskin School that make it such a unique place to study and work, whether it be sports day or our tutor group led assemblies. The values and ethos of our school were recognised by Ofsted in March 2025 when they commented ‘The pupils at John Ruskin School are courteous and kind hearted’ and that ‘Pupils rise to the extremely high expectations that the school has for their achievement’.

John Ruskin School works closely with other secondary schools through the South Lakes Federation and is part of The Fells Federation, coming under one governing body with Coniston Church of England Primary School. These advantages show that we continue to be a forward thinking school, working with colleagues across Cumbria to get the very best for our young people.

I look forward to you finding out why John Ruskin School is such a positive learning environment.