T. P. Riley Community School was originally a Technical High School located in

Bloxwich Bloxwich is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England. It is located between the towns of Walsall, Cannock, Willenhall and Brownhills. The most famous resident is John Singh Sangha, the Bengali tiger, the ...

, West Midlands, England. An 11-plus pass was required to get a place there until sometime in 1964 when the school became a Comprehensive. Built in 1958 to serve the expanding town of Bloxwich, it was situated on Lichfield Road, replacing Elmore Green High School in the town centre, the buildings of which survived for several years as an annex. From 1973 until around 1990 the old Elmore Green buildings became incorporated as an annex to the comprehensive school. Famous pupils at T. P. Riley include

Noddy Holder Neville John "Noddy" Holder (born 15 June 1946) is an English musician, songwriter and actor. He was the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the English rock band Slade, one of the UK's most successful acts of the 1970s. Known for his disti ...

, who became the lead singer of

Slade Slade are a rock band formed in Wolverhampton, England in 1966. They rose to prominence during the glam rock era in the early 1970s, achieving 17 consecutive top 20 hits and six number ones on the UK Singles Chart. The '' British Hit Singl ...

and Garry Newman, developer of the game

Garry's Mod ''Garry's Mod'', commonly clipped as ''GMod'', is a 2006 sandbox game developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve. The base game mode of ''Garry's Mod'' has no set objectives and provides the player with a world in which to fre ...

and owner of

Facepunch Studios Facepunch Studios Ltd is a British video game developer and publisher headquartered in Birmingham, England, founded in June 2004 and incorporated on 17 March 2009 by Garry Newman. The company is most known for its sandbox video game '' Garry's ...

. Before any of these was a 'beat group' who all attended the school who were on the ATV programme 'Up and Doing' in June 1963. This was the pilot programme for 'For Teenagers Only ' and the 4 lads were one of the first groups in the Midlands to have been on the TV. They were; Anthony Hawkins, Dennis Shaw, Keith Nolan and Eric Thacker. The school received news coverage in October 1988 when one of the school's history teachers, Bernard Butt (aged 44), was killed on a cruise ship, the MV Jupiter (1961), after it sank following a collision with a freighter near

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; ; , Ancient: , Katharevousa: ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens city centre along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf in the Ath ...

in Greece during a school trip journey. The teacher was reportedly attempting to save students during the sinking. One student from a nearby school in

Streetly Streetly is an area in the county of West Midlands, England which lies around to the north of Birmingham City Centre. It is uniquely located within the borders of Birmingham, Lichfield and Walsall district authorities, and is part of the West ...

and two Greek seamen also died.Forum containing article from the ''Express & Star'' newspaper
/ref> Demolition work at T.P Riley began towards the end of 2001 and lessons were taught in

Portakabin A portable, demountable or transportable building is a building designed and built to be movable rather than permanently located. Smaller version of portable buildings are also known as portable cabins. Portable cabins are prefabricated struct ...

buildings until the new school, known as

Walsall Academy Walsall Academy is a secondary school based in Bloxwich, Walsall, West Midlands, England. School It opened in January 2003 with 470 students on the roll, and after four years that figure had increased to 1,050 – making it one of the most pop ...

, was opened in September 2003.

References

Defunct schools in Walsall Educational institutions established in 1958 1958 establishments in England {{WestMidlands-school-stub