Sutton Community Academy (formerly Sutton Centre Community College) 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 ...

and

sixth form In the education systems of Barbados, England, Jamaica, Northern Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago, Wales, and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepa ...

with academy status, located in

Sutton-in-Ashfield Sutton-in-Ashfield is a market town in Nottinghamshire, England, with a population of 36,404 in 2021. It is the largest town in the district of Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, Ashfield, four miles west of Mansfield, from the Derbyshire border and ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

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 ...

History

Early plans

Sutton in Ashfield Urban District Sutton in Ashfield was an Urban District in Nottinghamshire, England from 1894 to 1974.F A Youngs Jr., ''Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol II: Northern England'', London, 1991 It was created under the Local Government Act ...

councillors in 1966 looked at the possibility of a technical-grammar school between Sutton and

Huthwaite Huthwaite is a village in the Ashfield district, in Nottinghamshire, England, located to the west of Mansfield, close to the Derbyshire boundary. It is in the Huthwaite and Brierley ward of Ashfield District Council. Before 1907 the village w ...

. A £264,770 technical grammar school had been planned in 1960, costing £315,000 by 1963. In 1964 the £328,614 technical grammar school was given the go ahead by the county council. The technical grammar school was being planned by 1966. A model was made of the layout of the new technical grammar school in 1968, in the town centre. 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. 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 technical

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 ...

, 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-date

secondary modern school A secondary modern school () is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Secondary modern schools accommodated the majority (70–75%) of pupil ...

with improved buildings. The councillors did not believe that

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 ...

s 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 as

, the local councillors were more traditional. The local Sutton councillors had also wanted a campus-type school on Leamington Drive, with grammar school,

, and a

secondary technical school Secondary technical schools, referred to colloquially as secondary techs or simply techs, were a type of secondary school in England and Wales that existed in the mid-20th century under the Tripartite System of education. Few were built; their mai ...

, in the early 1950s. The

deputy director of education, James Stone, had joined from

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

, which itself had adopted the community college idea in 1956. This idea was itself borrowed from the

village college The village college is an institution specific to Cambridgeshire, England, including the Peterborough unitary authority area. It caters for the education of 11- to 16-year-olds during the day, and provides educational and leisure facilities to t ...

idea in

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

, with joint-use buildings with

adult education Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained educating activities in order to gain new knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. Merriam, Sharan B. & Brockett, Ralph G. ''The Pr ...

Opening

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 the CLASP building technique. The headteacher was the former head of Geography at Rushcliffe Technical Grammar School for Boys. 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. There were three phases, to cost £1,330,207. The school was featured on 'The Education Debate' at 11.30pm, on Tuesday 15 March 1977 on BBC1, presented by

Harry Rée Harry Alfred Rée, DSO, OBE (15 October 1914 – 17 May 1991) was a British educationist and wartime member of the Special Operations Executive. Of the more than 400 SOE agents who worked in France during World War II, M.R.D. Foot, the offic ...

, a former grammar school head. On Monday 8 December 1980, David Hawksworth of ''

Woman's Hour ''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946. History The first BBC programme for women was the programme cal ...

'' visited the school. The school was also featured on the 'Education Roadshow' on Radio 4, on Sunday 12 October 1986.Education Roadshow October 1986
/ref>

Attainment

The school (intentionally) only offered CSEs, not O-levels. By the 1990s, it was a failing school.

Academy

The school was awarded dual Specialist

Business and Enterprise College Business and Enterprise Colleges (BECs) were introduced in 2002 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in England. The system enabled secondary schools to specialise in certain fields. Schools that successfully applied to the Specialist Sch ...

and

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 ...

status, before becoming an academy in January 2013.

School performance

In 2019 the school was inspected 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 ...

and judged Inadequate. A new principal and senior leadership team were put in place in 2021, and Ofsted found that the school was improving. In 2022 the school was inspected again and judged Good.

References

External links

Sutton Community Academy official website
{{authority control 1973 establishments in England Academies in Nottinghamshire Educational institutions established in 1973 Sutton-in-Ashfield Secondary schools in Nottinghamshire