Astrea Academy Dearne (legal name The Dearne 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 located in the

Dearne Valley The Dearne Valley is an area of South Yorkshire, England, along the River Dearne. It encompasses the towns of Wombwell, Wath-upon-Dearne, Swinton, Conisbrough and Mexborough, the large villages of Ardsley, Bolton on Dearne, Goldthorpe, T ...

, Barnsley,

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and metropolitan county, metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of City of Doncaster, Doncaster and City of Sh ...

, England. It caters mainly for pupils from the

Goldthorpe Goldthorpe is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. It was anciently a small medieval farming village, Goldthorpe is recorded in the ''Domesday Boo ...

Thurnscoe Thurnscoe is a village in the metropolitan borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. The village falls within the Dearne North ward of the Barnsley MBC. Historically within the West Riding of Yorkshire, the village is approximately fr ...

and Bolton-on-Dearne areas of Barnsley. It currently has around 1,157 pupils aged 11–16 years.

History

The school was previously known as Dearneside Secondary Modern and then Dearneside Comprehensive School until its merger with Thurnscoe Comprehensive School to create The Dearne High School in September 1991. It received specialist humanities status in 2008 making it The Dearne High – A Specialist Humanities College. In 2007 the percentage of pupils gaining five A* to C grades rose 18% to 54%, but in 2008 the school was one of eight schools in Barnsley to be told by the government that they were not meeting national targets on the number of pupils gaining five A*–C GCSEs. In 2008 the school published a book of short stories, ''Out of the Shadows: An Anthology of Fantasy Stories'', which sold in high street stores and was among the top three fantasy books on Amazon, and in 2009 pupils at the school produced a graphic novel called ''Fools Gold''. A new school building was constructed during 2010 next to the existing school for £29 million as part of Barnsley Council's "Building Schools for the Future" project, and the new site opened in January 2011 as The Dearne Advanced Learning Centre. The school had also raised over £4,700,000 for charities across Yorkshire. In 2011 the school was one of two in the country to send pupils to a remembrance event in

Ypres Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality c ...

, Belgium, as part of the

Royal British Legion The Royal British Legion (RBL), formerly the British Legion, is a British charity providing financial, social and emotional support to members and veterans of the British Armed Forces, their families and dependants, as well as all others in ...

's Poppy Travel scheme. The school was awarded £50,000 in 2011 by the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

. Previously a community school administered by Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, in February 2019 Dearne Advanced Learning Centre converted to academy status, sponsored by Astrea Academy Trust. The school's legal name is The Dearne Academy, but it uses the name Astrea Academy Dearne publicly. Thurnscoe Comprehensive School was a coeducational community comprehensive school in Thurnscoe which was founded in 1970.

References

External links

School information
by the

Department for Education The Department for Education (DfE) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for child protection, child services, education (compulsory, further and higher education), apprenticeships and wider skills in England. A Department ...

2010 Department of Education performance tables for Dearne High School

Ofsted reports
{{authority control Academies in Barnsley Secondary schools in Barnsley