Middlesbrough College, located on one campus at

Middlehaven Middlehaven is the oldest part of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. It is directly south of the River Tees, and north of the current town centre, separated from it by the railway and A66. The area has had waves of regeneration since pos ...

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ), colloquially known as Boro, is a port town in the Borough of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. Lying to the south of the River Tees, Middlesbrough forms part of the Teesside Built up area, built-up area and the Tees Va ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

, England, is the largest college on

Teesside Teesside () is an urban area around the River Tees in North East England. Straddling the border between County Durham and North Yorkshire, it spans the boroughs of Borough of Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough, Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, Stockton ...

Admissions

It provides predominantly

further education Further education (often abbreviated FE) in the United Kingdom and Ireland is additional education to that received at secondary school that is distinct from the higher education (HE) offered in universities and other academic institutions. It ...

, but also selected higher education provision, and until 2008, existed on four different sites across the town ( Marton, Acklam,

Kirby Kirby may refer to: Buildings * Kirby Building, a skyscraper in Dallas, Texas, United States * Kirby Lofts, a building in Houston, Texas, United States * Kirby Hall, an Elizabethan country house near Corby, Northamptonshire, England * Kirby Ho ...

and Longlands). Relocation to

was one of

Tees Valley Regeneration Tees Valley Regeneration was an urban regeneration company covering the Tees Valley area of North East England and at one time was the largest urban development agency in England. The headquarters were at Cavendish House, Teesdale Business Pa ...

's major redevelopment projects. It is situated just north of the A66 and Middlesbrough town centre, next to Middlesbrough Dock and the dock tower, and close to the

Transporter Bridge A transporter bridge, also known as a ferry bridge or aerial transfer bridge, is a type of movable bridge that carries a segment of roadway across a river. The gondola is slung from a tall span by wires or a metal frame. The design has been us ...

and Middlesbrough FC's

Riverside Stadium The Riverside Stadium is a football stadium in Middlesbrough, England, which has been the home of Middlesbrough since its opening in 1995. It has an all-seated capacity of 34,742, although provisional planning permission is in place to expan ...

. The college is approximately from

Middlesbrough railway station Middlesbrough is a railway station on the Durham Coast, Esk Valley and Tees Valley lines. The station serves the town of Middlesbrough in North Yorkshire, England. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by TransPennine Express. Direct destina ...

. Student numbers during the 2013/14 college year were 14,232 (2013/14 annual report). Further annual reports state that there are over 13,000 students (during the 2020/21 college year) and over 12,000 students (during the 2022/23 college year).

History and estates

Former schools

Three of the pre-2008 sites were those of the former

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...

s when run by the Middlesbrough Education Committee: * Middlesbrough High School (Boys) – opened in October 1870 as a fee-paying school. * Middlesbrough High School (Girls) – opened in August 1874. A joint new building was opened on ''Albert Road'' in 1877, but the boys and girls were taught separately. The central Middlesbrough site was in use until 1960, and then moved to ''Marton Road''. * the girls-only Kirby Grammar School - opened in October 1911 on the corner of ''Roman Road'' and ''Orchard Road'' in

Linthorpe Linthorpe is a neighbourhood in Middlesbrough in the Borough of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. It borders the neighbourhoods of Acklam, Ayresome, Grove Hill, the town centre and Whinney Banks. History Deriving from 'Leofa's villa ...

. * the boys-only Acklam Hall Grammar School for Boys – opened in September 1935 when the numbers at Middlesbrough High School for Boys outgrew the capacity of the buildings. Middlesbrough High School for Girls had 450 girls in the 1950s, and 600 in 1962. Middlesbrough High School for Boys had around 450 boys in the 1950s, and 600 in the mid-1960s. The boys' and girls' schools, both three-form entry schools, merged in September 1967 to form Middlesbrough High School, an ages 13–18 comprehensive with around 1,200 boys and girls and 500 in the sixth form. Middlesbrough High School became Middlesbrough and Marton Sixth Form College in 1974. In April 1974, the school had been taken over by the County of

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

(Cleveland County Council). Acklam Hall Grammar School had 600 boys in the mid-1960s. It merged with Kirby to form Acklam High School, a

comprehensive school A comprehensive school is a secondary school for pupils aged 11–16 or 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is restricted on the basis ...

, in 1968. This school then further changed in 1974 to Acklam Sixth Form College and King's Manor 11–16 School. The King's Manor School suffered a fire and moved across the road, ''Hall Drive'', to share a site with Hall Garth School (now Hall Garth Community Arts College).

Former colleges

Longlands College of Further Education was on ''Douglas Street'' which opened in 1957, and at first partly used by the Constantine Technical College. It was near the junction of ''Marton Road'' ( A172) and
Longlands Road
' ( A1085) just west of

North Ormesby North Ormesby is a part of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. The area has gained the common nickname of Doggy, it is of unknown origin. Population of the now former "North Ormesby and Brambles Farm" ward was 6,268, at the 2011 census, ...

Kirby College of Further Education Kirby College of Further Education, formerly girls-only Kirby Grammar School, is a campus in Linthorpe, Middlesbrough. Founded in 1910 with the benefaction of Alderman Kirby, in its recent history it was part of Middlesbrough College Middles ...

was separate and established in 1968 on ''Roman Road''. It had departments such as Food and Fashion, Catering, Hairdressing, and Business Studies, and taught single O-level subjects (re-takes or part-time). It also offered A level programmes in the late 1970s

Foundation through two mergers

Teesside Tertiary College was created on 1 August 1995 by the merger of Longlands College of Further Education and Marton Sixth Form College, and was based on ''Marton Road'' next to the

James Cook University Hospital The James Cook University Hospital, formerly known as the South Cleveland Hospital, is a public tertiary referral hospital and regional major trauma centre in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England with 1,046 beds. It forms part of the South ...

. Middlesbrough College was formed when Kirby College of Further Education merged with Acklam Sixth Form College, also on 1 August 1995. From 1992, these two colleges had been funded by the

Further Education Funding Council for England The Further Education Funding Council for England (FEFC) was a non-departmental public body of the Department for Education and Skills which distributed funding to Further Education and Sixth Form Colleges in England between 1992 and 2001. It w ...

. In 1995, Teesside Tertiary College offered £1,200 for every person signing up for A-level course who had eight A grades at GCSE.

Merger and move to new site

Middlesbrough College merged with Teesside Tertiary College on 1 August 2002, with it now being spread over four sites. Since 2001, these colleges had been funded by the Learning and Skills Council for England. Once the merger was complete, planning began for the relocation to a single site at

in central Middlesbrough. Building work for the new college building at Middlehaven began in early 2007. In September 2008, the four separate sites were eventually consolidated onto a single site with the opening of the new £68 million Middlesbrough college building. The Middlehaven site was officially opened on 12 February 2009 by

Prince Andrew, Duke of York Prince Andrew, Duke of York (Andrew Albert Christian Edward; born 19 February 1960) is a member of the British royal family. He is the third child and second son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a younger bro ...

, although the plaque marking the opening was removed in January 2022. The Middlehaven site has since grown with the opening of new college buildings adjacent to the main building. MC6 & MC SPORT (a sixth form centre & sports academy) opened in October 2012, and MC STEM (science, technology, engineering & maths) was officially opened by Professor Brian Cox in November 2015. In April 2022, MC Digital was opened, housing new labs for games development, video editing, computing, and other tech based pathways. Part of the MC STEM building is now the base for many of the Higher Education courses offered under University Centre Middlesbrough. The college has gone through further development in 2024 with TTE Technical Centre building being opened ready for courses starting in 2024/25, and a new, state-of-the-art healthcare ward being opened by Dr Ranj Singh in June.

Former sites

Middlesbrough college's four previous sites were: *

Marton Road The A172 is a major road in North Yorkshire, and the unitary authority of Middlesbrough, England. It runs from Ingleby Arncliffe to Middlesbrough. The road derives its adumbrated number from 1969 when a thoroughfare link connected South Teessi ...

(Marton Campus) * Douglas Street (Longlands Campus) * Roman Road (Kirby Campus) * Hall Drive (Acklam Campus) Most of the Marton Campus is in the process of becoming a housing estate with 275 houses being built by

Taylor Woodrow Taylor Woodrow was one of the largest housebuilding and general construction companies in Britain. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until its merger with rival housebuilder George Wimpey ...

. The remainder of the site was encompassed into part of the new Middlesbrough Sports Village with an outdoor

velodrome A velodrome is an arena for track cycling. Modern velodromes feature steeply banked oval tracks, consisting of two 180-degree circular bends connected by two straights. The straights transition to the circular turn through a moderate easement ...

replacing the football pitches. The Kirby Campus now has 84 houses and 53 apartments built on it by Taylor Woodrow. The former Kirby Grammar School has become 21 apartments. The Longlands Campus has become 104 houses built by Taylor Woodrow. This includes the former playing field and sports hall.

Curriculum

Courses range from university academics to vocational education. Selected higher education courses exist by virtue of an indirectly funded partnership arrangement with the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

Alumni

Acklam Hall Grammar School for Boys

Roland Carl Backhouse Roland Carl Backhouse (born 18 August 1948) is a British computer scientist and mathematician. , he is Emeritus Professor of Computing Science at the University of Nottingham. Early life and education Backhouse was born and raised in the Thorn ...

, Professor of Computing, University of Nottingham *

Air Vice-Marshal Air vice-marshal (Air Vce Mshl or AVM) is an air officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is also used by the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence and it is sometime ...

Robert Hooks * Adm Sir

Michael Livesay Admiral Sir Michael Howard Livesay, (5 April 1936 – 6 October 2003) was a senior Royal Navy officer who served as Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel from 1991 to 1992. Naval career Educated at Acklam Hall Grammar School and Royal ...

, (first) Commander of HMS ''Invincible'' from 1979 to 1982 *

Alan Old Alan Gerald Bernard Old (born 23 September 1945) is an English rugby union player who had 16 Cap (sport), caps for England national rugby union team, England. Old was an undergraduate at Queen Mary College and later studied for a year at Durh ...

, England rugby union international from 1972 to 1978 *

Chris Old Chris Old (born Christopher Middleton Old, 22 December 1948) is a former English cricketer, who played 46 Tests and 32 ODIs from 1972 to 1981. A right-arm fast-medium bowler and lower order left-handed batsman, Old was a key feature of the Yor ...

, England cricket international from 1972 to 1981

Middlesbrough High School for Boys

* Robert Cant, Labour MP from 1966 to 1983 for

Stoke-on-Trent Central Stoke-on-Trent Central is a constituency in Staffordshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Gareth Snell of the Labour Party, who had previously represented the constituency between 2017 and 2019. He succe ...

* George Elliott (footballer) * Sir

John Watson Gibson Sir John Watson Gibson (9 August 1885 – 19 March 1947) was an English civil engineer. He designed dams in England and in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and port installations in England and Ireland. In the UK he is most notable for having designed a k ...

, civil engineer, worked with Pauling & Co. to build the

Jebel Aulia Dam The Jebal Aulia Dam is a dam on the White Nile near Khartoum, Sudan. Its construction began in 1933 and was completed in 1937. When completed it was the largest dam in the world. The dam was built by Gibson and Pauling (Foreign) Ltd, which was ...

, and in the war designed the

breakwater Breakwater may refer to: * Breakwater (structure), a structure for protecting a beach or harbour Places * Breakwater, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia * Breakwater Island, Antarctica * Breakwater Islands, Nunavut, Canada * ...

s for the

Mulberry harbour The Mulberry harbours were two temporary portable harbours developed by the Admiralty (United Kingdom), British Admiralty and War Office during the Second World War to facilitate the rapid offloading of cargo onto beaches during the Allies of ...

s * Sir

Denis Hamilton Lieutenant Colonel Sir Charles Denis Hamilton, DSO, TD (6 December 1918 – 7 April 1988) was an English newspaper editor. He was born in South Shields, County Durham, England, the son of an engineer from the Acklam iron and steel work ...

, Editor of ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'', Chairman from 1979 to 1985 of

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

and President from 1981 to 1983 of the

Commonwealth Press Union The Commonwealth Press Union (CPU), formerly the Empire Press Union, was an association composed of 750 members in 49 countries, including newspaper groups (with several hundred newspapers), individual newspapers, and news agencies throughout the Co ...

* J. D. Mackie, historian and

Professor of Scottish History and Literature The Chair of Scottish History and Literature at the University of Glasgow was founded in 1913, endowed by a grant from the receipts of the 1911 Scottish Exhibition held in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Park, as well as donations from the Merchants Hous ...

from 1930 to 1957 at the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

* Sir Edward Pickering, editor from 1957 to 1962 of the ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first ...

'', and chairman from 1970 to 1974 of

IPC Magazines TI Media Ltd. (formerly International Publishing Company, IPC Magazines Ltd, IPC Media and Time Inc. UK) was a consumer magazine and digital publisher in the United Kingdom, with a portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year. Most of it ...

Cyril Smith Sir Cyril Richard Smith (28 June 1928 – 3 September 2010) was a British Liberal Party and Liberal Democrat politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Rochdale from 1972 to 1992. Smith was first active in local politics as ...

, Professor of Pianoforte from 1934 to 1974 at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

Bob Mortimer Robert Renwick Mortimer (born 23 May 1959) is an English comedian, author, television presenter, writer and actor. He is one half of the comedy double act Reeves and Mortimer with Jim Moir, Vic Reeves, and appears in the ''Mortimer & Whitehouse ...

, Comedy Actor

Middlesbrough High School for Girls

* Gillian Hush,

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

producer, notably of

Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight audio recordin ...

Kirby Grammar School

Anna Raeburn Anna Raeburn (born 3 April 1944) is a British broadcaster, author and journalist who is best known for her role as a radio agony aunt, giving advice on relationships and more general life problems. As a broadcaster, she has worked for Capital L ...

, agony aunt and radio broadcaster. * Professor Sue Scott, Feminist and Sociologist, Managing Editor of Discover Society.

Gallery

Image:Middlesbrough College east wing.jpg, West wing Image:Middlesbrough College main entrance.jpg, Main entrance Image:Middlesbrough College north wing.jpg, North wing.

References

External links

College homepage

''Acklam Through The Ages'' at BBC Tees

News items

History of Acklam Hall

Teesside Tertiary College formed in 1995
{{Authority control Educational institutions established in 1995 Education in Middlesbrough Further education colleges in North Yorkshire Further education colleges in the Collab Group 1995 establishments in England