| Sutton Community Academy | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | |
 | |
High Pavement ,, NG17 1EE | |
| Coordinates | 53°07′26″N1°15′38″W / 53.12376°N 1.26061°W /53.12376; -1.26061 |
| Information | |
| Type | Academy |
| Motto | Successful Confident Ambitious |
| Established | 1973 |
| Department for Education URN | 139063Tables |
| Ofsted | Reports |
| Principal | Lewis Taylor[1] |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Age | 11 to 18 |
| Enrolment | 903 |
| Colours | Purple, Black |
| Website | www |
Sutton Community Academy (formerly Sutton Centre Community College) is acoeducationalsecondary school andsixth form withacademy status, located inSutton-in-Ashfield,Nottinghamshire,England.
Sutton in Ashfield Urban District councillors in 1966 looked at the possibility of a technical-grammar school between Sutton andHuthwaite.
A £264,770 technical grammar school had been planned in 1960,[2]costing £315,000 by 1963. In 1964 the £328,614 technical grammar school was given the go ahead by the county council.[3] The technical grammar school was being planned by 1966.[4] A model was made of the layout of the new technical grammar school in 1968, in the town centre.[5] Two technical grammar schools had been built at Mansfield in 1957 and 1959, one at Eastwood in 1957, one at Hucknall in 1955, and one in Worksop in 1956.
In 1967 there was a dispute between the Urban Council and the County Council, as to where to put the school.[6][7]
After 1969, this earlier plan changed to a comprehensive school instead. The school was to be an eight form comprehensive, although the councillors still mostly preferred and expected a technicalgrammar school, due to the town's textile industry.Quarrydale Comprehensive had opened, but the Sutton Urban councillors saw this type of school as more of an up-to-datesecondary modern school with improved buildings. The councillors did not believe thatcomprehensive schools offered the relevant technical knowledge which they were mostly looking for. Comprehensive school plans in the 1960s were much more favoured by radical city councillors, but in towns such asSutton-in-Ashfield, the local councillors were more traditional. The local Sutton councillors had also wanted a campus-type school on Leamington Drive, with grammar school,secondary modern school, and asecondary technical school, in the early 1950s.[8]
TheNottinghamshire deputy director of education, James Stone, had joined fromLeicestershire, which itself had adopted the community college idea in 1956. This idea was itself borrowed from thevillage college idea inCambridgeshire, with joint-use buildings withadult education.
Sawston Village College was founded in 1930, the first village college in the UK. The 1967Plowden Report had commended the virtues of 'community' schools.
There were six coffee bars, staffed by older volunteers, often parents. There was a fully-equipped hairdressing salon. At the start there were 24 teachers with 300 children, to reach 100 teachers, and 1,320 children. Parents could join any class that they liked. Each lesson lasted the entire morning or the entire afternoon, with no hordes of children changing lessons. There was a disco, which was open in the lunchtime. The children were to be equals with the teachers; it was revolutionary.[9]
Leicestershire and Cambridgeshire built similar schools in the early 1970s. It was a form of free-rein and free-form utopian educationalcommunitarianism, which had the most nascent popularity in the early 1970s, but had receded by the late 1970s, and totally disappeared by the 1980s, although many university student unions, to this day, are often notably modelled on this same equal-footing approach.
The county council built schools, and the district council built sports facilities. On 15 September 1970, both councils met and agreed to develop a joint-use school. Another meeting was held in February 1971, between the Labour district and the Conservative county council. At the end of April 1971, the scheme was approved by Nottinghamshire Education Committee. £30,000 came from the district council for the building, and construction started in January 1972 by Searsons Ltd, under theCLASP building technique. The headteacher was the former head of Geography atRushcliffe Technical Grammar School for Boys.[10]
In 1970 it was to be called the Garden Lane Comprehensive School. Sutton-in-Ashfield Girls' Grammar School closed in July 1970, which had opened in 1920.[11] There were three phases, to cost £1,330,207.[12]
The school was featured on 'The Education Debate' at 11.30pm, on Tuesday 15 March 1977 on BBC1, presented byHarry Rée, a former grammar school head.[13] On Monday 8 December 1980, David Hawksworth ofWoman's Hour visited the school.[14] The school was also featured on the 'Education Roadshow' on Radio 4, on Sunday 12 October 1986.[15]
A similar school, for 1,320 children was proposed in early 1975, to open in September 1977, to be known as Kirkby Centre, in the town centre, not the outskirts of the town; today this isOutwood Academy Kirkby. It was reduced in buildings, and does not have a sixth form.
The leisure facilities, known as Sutton Recreation Centre, opened 18 months late, on Monday February 7 1977, with a sports centre and squash courts, six badminton courts. The theatre had 230 seats, with two licensed bars and restaurant, was not complete by February 1977, but would open later in the year. It was to cost £720,000 but this was now over £1m. The new Ashfield Council took over running the new leisure centre.[16] The theatre, two licensed bars, and restaurant opened in September 1977.[17]
The school (intentionally) only offered CSEs, not O-levels. Stewart Wilson, the headteacher, in April 1975 decided not to have O-levels; the headteacher said that it was 'a fairer thing to do', for the 'slower learners'. The school had no ambition.[18] The county council were not happy, and many parents, that the anarchic school did not offer O-levels.[19]
By the 1990s, it was a failing school.[citation needed]
The school was awarded dual SpecialistBusiness and Enterprise College andArts College status, before becoming an academy in January 2013.
In 2019 the school was inspected byOfsted and judged Inadequate.[33] A new principal and senior leadership team were put in place in 2021, and Ofsted found that the school was improving.[34] In 2022 the school was inspected again and judged Good.[35]
