Southfield Technology College was a mixed

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

Workington Workington is a coastal town and civil parish in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. The town is at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast, south-west of Carlisle and north-east of Whitehaven. At the 2021 census the ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

. It was established in 1984 following the merger of Moorclose Boys School and Salterbeck School.

Closure and merger

In 2014, following a failed inspection, the school was placed in special measures by

Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training ...

. It was decided that the school would close and merge with Stainburn School and Science College to form a new academy. To support both schools ahead of the merger, an

executive head teacher An executive head teacher, executive head master, executive head mistress, executive head or executive principal is the substantive or strategic head teacher of more than one school in the United Kingdom. The position role of an executive head tea ...

, Lorrayne Hughes, was appointed. It was also announced that William Howard School in

Brampton Brampton is a city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario, and the regional seat of the Regional Municipality of Peel. It is part of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is a List of municipalities in Ontario#L ...

would sponsor the new academy, which led to the creation of the William Howard Trust, a

multi-academy trust Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) or academy chain is an academy trust that operates more than one academy school. Academy schools are state-funded schools in England which are directly funded by the Department for Education and independent of local aut ...

, in September 2015. The school officially closed in August 2015 at the end of the

academic year An academic year, or school year, is a period that schools, colleges and university, universities use to measure the duration of studies for a given educational level. Academic years are often divided into academic terms. Students attend classe ...

and merged with Stainburn School and Science College to form Workington Academy. The new academy building opened in March 2017.

Demolition

It was announced that the new school building would be located on the site of the former Stainburn School and Science College, with construction expected to be completed by 2017. The site of Southfield Technology College was demolished in 2016, following a series of vandalism incidents.

References

{{Schools in Cumbria Defunct schools in Cumberland (unitary authority) Workington 2015 disestablishments in England Educational institutions disestablished in 2015