Firth Park Academy is a

coeducational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...

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 ...

with academy status, located in the

Shiregreen Shiregreen and Brightside ward—which includes the districts of Brightside, Shiregreen, and Wincobank—is one of the 28 electoral wards in City of Sheffield, England. It is located in the northern part of the city and covers an area ...

area of

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It is partnered with

Longley Park Sixth Form Longley Park Sixth Form is a 16-18 academy in the Longley area of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It is not to be confused with the multi-campus Sheffield College. Longley Park Sixth Form was established in 2004 with circa 1,200 student ...

, HBH Academy Trust, Beck Primary School, Hucklow Primary School and others.

History

In 1920 Firth Park Secondary School opened at the Brushes Building at the junction of Barnsley Road & Horninglow Road. It became Firth Park Grammar School in 1937. The uniform of the Grammar School was a red/maroon blazer with a matching red/maroon & green diagonal striped tie. As the uniform also included in the earlier years a red/maroon cap the pupils gained nickname “Red Caps”. Old pupils of the school are known as “Old Firparnians”. In 1969/70, following the Labour Government’s national shake up of secondary education the Grammar School, merged with Hatfield House Secondary School, and became the comprehensive Firth Park School. Firth Park School operated from the original buildings of the former schools (Brushes & North buildings). In 2003, following a period of closure & several arson incidents, the historic Brushes building was demolished. In 2004, the Longley Park Sixth Form College was opened on the site of Firth Park Grammar School. Firth Park School, now operating on the modernised site of the Hatfield House Secondary School on Fircroft Avenue two miles from the original Grammar School site, gained specialist status as an

Arts College An Arts College, in the United Kingdom, is a type of specialist school that specialises in the subject fields of the performing, visual, digital and/or media arts. They were announced in 1996 and introduced alongside Sports Colleges to En ...

and was renamed Firth Park Community Arts College. The school converted to academy status on 1 August 2013 and was renamed Firth Park Academy. The school is now sponsored by Lift Schools. Firth Park Secondary School Blazer Badge 1934-40

Academic performance

Currently, the school achieves average

GCSE The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools ...

s grades; a large number of students entering the school have average attainment level of around 85%. The number of students achieving five or more A*-C GCSEs has been increasing for the past several years. The sixth form college for Firth Park Academy is

Television appearance

From 2016 to 2021, Firth Park Academy appeared in the

CBBC CBBC is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content for children aged 6 to 12. Its sister c ...

show, '' Our School''. This showed the journey of new Year 7's joining Firth Park Academy.

Notable former pupils

* Stuart Ford, goalkeeper *

Richard Hawley Richard Willis Hawley (born 17 January 1967) is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. After his first band Treebound Story (formed while he was still at school) broke up, Hawley found success as a member of Britpop band Long ...

, musician with the

Longpigs Longpigs were an English indie rock band who rose to fame on the fringe of Britpop in the 1990s, comprising Crispin Hunt (vocals, guitar), Richard Hawley (guitar), Simon Stafford (bass guitar) and former Cabaret Voltaire member Dee Boyle (dru ...

Mark Rhodes Mark Thomas Rhodes (born 11 September 1981) is an English singer and television presenter, best known as one half of Sam & Mark, the other being Sam Nixon. Career Born in Wolverhampton, England, Rhodes finished in second place in the second ...

, footballer with

Rotherham United Rotherham United Football Club, nicknamed The Millers, is a professional association football club based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. The team plays in EFL League One, the third tier of English football, after suffering relegation fr ...

Firth Park Grammar School

Robert Battersby Robert Christopher Battersby (14 December 1924 – 30 September 2002) was a British soldier, linguist, diplomat and politician, who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the constituency of Humberside Humberside () was ...

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

, Conservative MEP from 1979–89 for

Humberside Humberside () was a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in Northern England from 1 April 1974 until 1 April 1996. It was composed of land from either side of the Humber, created from portions of the East Riding of Yorkshire, West Riding of ...

* Gerald Brooke, arrested for smuggling anti-Soviet leaflets in USSR in 1965 * Howard Johnson, footballer * Gordon Linacre CBE AFC DFM, Chairman from 1983–90 of

Yorkshire Post Newspapers Yorkshire Post Newspapers are publishers of the ''Yorkshire Post'' and ''Yorkshire Evening Post''. They were based at offices in Wellington Street, but in November 2012 they moved to Number 1 Leeds, Whitehall Road, where they took four floors in ...

* Lincoln Ralphs, Chief Education Officer from 1950–74 of Norfolk *

Roy Shaw Royston Henry Shaw (11 March 1936 – 14 July 2012), also known as Roy "Pretty Boy" Shaw, Roy "Mean Machine" Shaw and Roy West, was a property investor, author and businessman from the East End of London who was formerly a criminal and Categor ...

, Secretary General from 1975–83 of the

Arts Council of Great Britain The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. It was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England (now Arts Council England), the Scottish Arts Council (l ...

Paul Truswell Paul Anthony Truswell (born 17 November 1955) is an English Labour Party politician and former Member of Parliament (MP) for Pudsey from 1997 to 2010. Born in Sheffield, Truswell moved to Leeds at 18 to study History at the University of Lee ...

, Labour MP from 1997–2010 for

Pudsey Pudsey is a market town in the City of Leeds borough in West Yorkshire, England. It is located midway between Bradford city centre and Leeds city centre. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it has a population of 25,393. History T ...

Firth Park Secondary School

* John Bridge, the first person to be awarded a

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar ** Chocolate bar * Protein bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a laye ...

to the

George Medal The George Medal (GM), instituted on 24 September 1940 by King George VI,''British Gallantry Medals'' (Abbott and Tamplin), p. 138 is a decoration of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, awarded for gallantry, typically ...

was a teacher at the school before and after the Second World War *

Gordon Hobson Gordon Hobson (born 27 November 1957) is an English retired footballer who played as a forward, spending most of his career with Lincoln City, with shorter periods at Grimsby Town, Southampton and Exeter City. Football career Hobson was born ...

, footballer

References

External links

School website

Website of former Firth Park Grammar School & Comprehensive School pupils
{{authority control Educational institutions established in 1920 Secondary schools in Sheffield 1920 establishments in England Academies in Sheffield Academies Enterprise Trust