Mascalls Academy (formerly Mascalls School) is a

co-educational 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 ...

and a sixth form with academy status located in

Paddock Wood Paddock Wood is a town and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England, about southwest of Maidstone. At the 2001 Census it had a population of 8,263, falling marginally to 8,253 at the 2011 Census. Paddock Wood is a centre ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

Etymology

The name comes from the nearby Mascalls corner.

History

The school opened in 1956 as Mascalls School, a foundation school administered by

Kent County Council Kent County Council is a county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Kent in England. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county, which additionally includes the Unitary authorities of England, unitary auth ...

. It became an

academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

in 2011, and in 2015 it joined the

Leigh Academies Trust Leigh Academies Trust is a multi-academy trust, formed of 31 schools based in the Kent, Medway and South East London areas. Its Head Office is on the same site as Strood Academy, housing its Executive Team and central teams including Finance, E ...

. Stuart Reeves, headteacher since 2010, was promoted to LAT Executive Director of the

West Kent Kent is a traditional county in South East England with long-established human occupation. Prehistoric Kent Recent excavations and radiometric dating at a Lower Palaeolithic site at the West Gravel Pit, Fordwich, near Canterbury confirmed the ...

cluster of academies at the time of the school's accession to the Leigh Academies Trust in 2015. Wayne Barnett then became principal, having previously served as vice principal since 2013. In 2019, Barnett was promoted by the Leigh Academies Trust to serve as the principal of

Stationers' Crown Woods Academy Leigh Stationers' Academy is a Mixed-sex education, coeducational secondary school and sixth form with Academy (English school), academy status, located in the Eltham area of the Royal Borough of Greenwich in London, England. The school is built ...

. The vice principal at the time, William Monk was then promoted to principal of Mascalls. The Leigh Academies Trust has given all students in the trust, including the students at Mascalls,

Quest 2 Quest 2 is a standalone virtual reality headset developed by Reality Labs, a division of Meta Platforms. It was unveiled on September 16, 2020, and released on October 13, 2020 as the Oculus Quest 2. It was then rebranded as the Meta Quest 2 ...

s to help with learning. The academy had a therapy dog called "Levi" after

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...

. He was a

cocker spaniel Cocker Spaniels are dogs belonging to two breeds of the spaniel dog type: the American Cocker Spaniel and the English Cocker Spaniel, both of which are commonly called simply Cocker Spaniel in their countries of origin. In the early 20th century, ...

, born on 23 May 2019, and registered with the Pets As Therapy charity. When

High Weald Academy The High Weald Academy was a coeducational secondary school that opened in 1971 located in Cranbrook, Kent, England. The academy permanently closed in September 2022, with all the pupils from Year 7 to Year 10 offered places at Mascalls Acade ...

closed in September 2022, all pupils from Year 7 to Year 10 were offered places at Mascalls. Following the promotion of the current principal, William Monk, to a senior executive position within the Leigh Academies Trust, it was announced that Jo Brooks would become principal from 1 January 2023.

Houses

Mascalls Academy is organised into four houses (called "colleges"), named after "significant individuals". For the lower school: * Earhart (named after

Amelia Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart ( ; July 24, 1897 – January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer. On July 2, 1937, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world. During her li ...

) * Shackleton (named after

Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarcti ...

) * Luther King (named after

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...

) For the sixth form: * Marie Curie (named after

Marie Skłodowska Curie Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (; ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie ( ; ), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first wo ...

)

Mascalls Gallery

A small

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...

was located on the school site from 2006 to 2016. It had a frequently changing programme of exhibitions featuring national and internationally known artists. These included

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...

, L. S. Lowry,

Graham Sutherland Graham Vivian Sutherland (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmakin ...

and

Lee Miller Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, Lady Penrose (April 23, 1907 – July 21, 1977), was an American photographer and photojournalist. Miller was a fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris, becoming a fashion and fine-art pho ...

as well as artists from

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. In 2010, Mascalls Gallery exhibited for the first time in the UK drawings by

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...

for the nearby

All Saints' Church All Saints Church, or All Saints' Church or variations on the name may refer to: Albania * All Saints' Church, Himarë Australia * All Saints Church, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory * All Saints Anglican Church, Brisbane, Queensland *All ...

Tudeley Tudeley is a village in the civil parish of Capel, in the Tunbridge Wells borough of Kent, England. The village is home to All Saints' Church, the only church in the world that has all its windows in stained glass designed by Marc Chagall. Th ...

. An exhibition of watercolour paintings by Roland Collins led to further exhibitions in London, raising the artist's profile. The gallery closed in June 2016 due to a lack of funds, and the building has since been refurbished as the new Mascalls Library.

Ofsted

The school's last full inspection was in 2012 when it was judged as 'Good' 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 ...

Notable alumni

Philip Martin Brown Philip Martin Brown (born 9 July 1956) is an English actor. He is known for his long-running portrayal of English teacher Grantly Budgen in the hit BBC One school-based drama series '' Waterloo Road'', which he played from 2006 to 2013. He is ...

, actor

References

External links

Mascalls Academy official websiteChapter in ''Teaching Art in a Postmodern World: Theories, Teacher Reflections and Interpretive Frameworks'' by Bill Hall, head of art at the school (2002)
{{authority control Secondary schools in Kent Educational institutions established in 1956 1956 establishments in England Academies in Kent Leigh Academies Trust Paddock Wood