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 t ...

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

and

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

with academy status, located in

Sutton-in-Ashfield Sutton-in-Ashfield is a market town in Nottinghamshire, England, with a population of 48,527 in 2019. It is the largest town in the district of Ashfield, four miles west of Mansfield, two miles from the Derbyshire border and 12 miles nort ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

History

Early plans

Sutton in Ashfield Urban District Sutton in Ashfield was an Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland), 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 w ...

councillors in 1966 looked at the possibility of a technical-grammar school between Sutton and Huthwaite. By 1969, the school was to be an eight form comprehensive, but the councillors still 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 school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

, 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 with improved buildings. The councillors did not believe that

comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 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 res ...

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, secondary modern school, and a secondary technical school, in the early 1950s. The

deputy director of education, James Stone, had joined from

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

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

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

, with joint-use buildings with

adult education Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. Merriam, Sharan B. & Brockett, Ralp ...

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 Clasp, clasper or CLASP may refer to: * Wrist clasp, a dressing accessory * Folding clasp, a device used to close a watch strap * Medal bar, an element in military decoration * Fastener, a hardware device that mechanically joins objects together * ...

building technique. The headteacher was the former head of Geography at Rushcliffe Technical Grammar School for Boys.

Attainment

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

Rogue teachers in the 1970s

The headteacher took on a teacher suspended by another Mansfield comprehensive school, for supporting a protest by fifth form girls over a ban on wearing trousers. Father of three, Manuel Moreno (born 1945 in Paddington), had been a teacher for six years. He taught Environmental Studies and Personal Relationships, and ended up regaling descriptive accounts of his adolescent sexual forays, as a discussion for 16 year olds in a lesson. 29 year old Manuel Moreno (on a £3,000 salary) was inevitably sacked on Monday 2 December 1974, after a governors meeting. Terry Lovell of '' The People'' had read his essay, which he described as ''depraved, littered with four-letter words''. It described a sordid sex act in a kitchen with a girl of 17, and how his school friends had exposed themselves to a woman teacher in a classroom. A psychiatrist looked at the essay, and said that it dealt exclusively with violent sexuality, and introduced sex in a brutal manner. The editor of the ''Sunday People'' described its contents as 'repulsive'. Moreno appealed to Nottinghamshire Education Committee, and the industrial tribunal case in Nottingham, overseen by former Conservative MP Michael Coulson on Wednesday 21 May 1975 made national newspapers in May 1975. In 1977, teacher Alan Beardsley (1948-2014) gave a lesson about swear words for lesbians, homosexuals and sexual acts to 13 year olds in a Personal Relationships lesson. He retired in 2002.

Visits

On Wednesday 9 November 1983,

Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth ...

visited, after visiting a nearby hosiery factory.''Times'' Thursday 10 November 1983, page 14

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 Schoo ...

and Arts College status, before becoming an academy in January 2013.

School performance

As of 2021, the school's most recent inspection by

Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a Non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial department of Government of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament of the U ...

was in 2019, with a judgement of Inadequate. A new principal and senior leadership team were put in place in 2021, and Ofsted found that the school was improving.

References

External links

Sutton Community Academy official website
{{authority control Academies in Nottinghamshire Ashfield District Secondary schools in Nottinghamshire