The Grangefield Academy

The Grangefield Academy
Established 2014, originally founded 1896
Type Academy
Principal Miss Nikki Gibb
Chair Mr John Copping (Business Development Director of Amec Foster Wheeler)
Location Oxbridge Avenue
Grangefield
Stockton-on-Tees
TS18 4LE
England
Coordinates: 54°34′00″N 1°20′29″W / 54.56663°N 1.34137°W / 54.56663; -1.34137
DfE number 808/4003
DfE URN 139673 Tables
Ofsted Reports Pre-academy reports
Staff 82
Students 1050
Gender Coeducational
Ages 11–16
Motto Together, Beyond Expectations
Website The Grangefield Academy

The Grangefield Academy is a secondary school with academy status situated in the heart of the borough of Stockton on Tees, located on Oxbridge Avenue, Grangefield, Stockton-on-Tees, a market town in the ceremonial county of County Durham, North East England.

Overview

The Grangefield Academy is located in extensive school fields, adjacent to the town ring road and opposite the Stockton Cricket Club Ground. The attractive and substantial main buildings date from the early 1950s and comprised Grangefield Boys’ and Grangefield Girls’ Grammar Schools which stood next to one another. Modern additions include a Sports Hall, Library and Technology Block.

The original brick, sandstone and Cumberland slate buildings faced out over the playing fields and were constructed around four well-planted quadrangles, that provided a distinctive and stimulating learning environment. Many areas of the school have been extensively refurbished; a new extension for the Design and Technology block was completed in 2005. The school field and grounds provide 11 tennis courts, 2 football pitches, 2 rugby pitches, 2 hockey pitches and 2 artificial cricket wickets.

There has been substantial investment in ICT over the last few years. There are fully equipped ICT suites used exclusively by ICT (6 rooms), Mathematics, Modern Languages and Humanities. There are also many other subject areas with in-class ICT provision, including Art, Music, Design and Technology and Science. Many curriculum areas have access to interactive whiteboards and data projectors. The facilities are greatly enhanced through the Grangefield Media Centre, providing state of the art ICT facilities, which is located on the school site.

2016 saw the completion of plans to rebuild the academy, with a new building featuring a large sports hall, activity studio, drama studio, main hall and dining hall.[1] The old Grammar Schools buildings have been demolished. The land will be used for a new car park, multi-use games area and school fields.

The academy has had a “schools within school” ethos since its conversion to academy status in January 2014 and has divided the five year groups into schools. Year 7 is Discovery, Year 8 is Ignite, Year 9 is Innovation, Year 10 is Pioneer and Year 11 is Revolution. Each has its own colour scheme with coloured accent walls in each year group area and a coloured ‘G’ on school ties; for example, Year 11's colour is pink.

History

The school dates back to 1896, originating as the Stockton Higher Grade School. However the current site is that of the former Grangefield Grammar Schools, which opened on 2 November 1951. Prior to this, from 1944, it was in different buildings as the Stockton Secondary Grammar School, and before that, as Stockton Secondary School from 1906. The boys' and girls' lessons were taught separately, with separate heads of school. It became unified as comprehensive and co-educational in 1973, and called The Grange Comprehensive School, until 1985.[2]

Hardwick Secondary Modern School, founded in 1963, became Sheraton Comprehensive School in 1973. This merged with The Grange Comprehensive School in 1985 to become Grangefield School. The current institution does not have a sixth form. Grangefield is an established co-educational comprehensive school of over 1000 students aged 11–16, and had been a specialist Technology College from 1999 to 2013, during which period it was named Grangefield School and Technology College.

The school undertook formal consultation about plans to re-establish itself as an Academy sponsored by Northern Education Trust, a Department for Education approved charity, and the conversion to The Grangefield Academy was finalised in early 2014.[3]

Academic performance

The school has been in the lowest 20% quintile amongst similar schools nationally.[4] In 2012, only 40% of pupils attained five GCSEs grade A* to C including English and mathematics. This was a decrease of 10 percentage points since 2011. Work to improve the grades and reputation of the school has begun, with GCSE results for 2015 the best ever.

Following an Ofsted inspection in December 2012, the school was placed in "Special Measures" under the Education Act 2005 because it was failing to provide an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing and governing the school were not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvements in the inadequate achievements of pupils, quality of teaching, standards of behaviour, and managerial leadership. Subsequently the school had visits from Her Majesty's Inspectorate, some of which have deemed that the school was making reasonable progress, but the final inspection in 2013 determined that the school was not making enough progress towards the removal of special measures.[5]

Notable former pupils

Stockton Secondary School

Grangefield Grammar School

References

  1. ↑ Evening Gazette, 25 March 2014 http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/publics-views-sought-plans-new-6872508
  2. ↑ Old Stocktonians Association http://www.oldstocktonians.org.uk/historys.asp
  3. ↑ Northern Education Trust http://www.northerneducationtrust.org/our-academies/grangefield-academy
  4. ↑ School Data Dashboard http://dashboard.ofsted.gov.uk/dash.php?urn=111753
  5. ↑ Ofsted Inspection Reports http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/ELS/111753
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