Thomas Hepburn Community Academy (formerly Thomas Hepburn Community School) was 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) ...

with academy status, located in

Gateshead Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newcastl ...

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 ...

. The school served about 700 pupils aged 11–16.

History

Thomas Hepburn Community School was founded in 1990 following the merger of Sheriff Hill and Highfield Schools, based at the Highfield site. It was named for

Thomas Hepburn Thomas Hepburn (c. 1795 – 9 December 1864), often known as Tommy Hepburn, was an English coal miner and trade union leader. Background Hepburn was born in Pelton, County Durham. He began employment as a coal miner as a child, aged just ...

, a trade union leader. The original headmaster was Mr. C.B. Buddle who had previously been headmaster at Sheriff Hill. In 2009 the school started an extensive rebuild project which saw the demolition of North and South block, the school hall, sports hall and gym as well as the refurbishment of the Technology block which now is home to the Art, Humanities and ICT departments. The Lifelong Learning building was refurbished over the summer break in 2011. In 2012 Thomas Hepburn was judged to be "Unsatisfactory" by Ofsted, and the 2012 Exam results placed the school among the 200 lowest attaining schools in the country. In January 2013 the Department of Education made the decision to convert the school into an academy, which formally occurred in October 2013. The school was then renamed Thomas Hepburn Community Academy. In 2015 a new system of a "mini school" took place, letting the year 7 students be free from the older students. In 2019, the school closed, due to dwindling student numbers, mainly attributed to poor exam results.

Ofsted

In February 2017, the academy was rated 'Inadequate' by Ofsted. The report said almost all pupils failed to achieve good enough qualifications and the brightest pupils weren't fulfilling their potential, while poorly planned teaching saw academic strugglers punished. Inspectors said teachers “settle too often for incomplete work or work of a poor standard”, and pupils who missed lessons weren't helped to catch up, and quickly fell behind. Meanwhile, behaviour was described as sub-standard. The report said: “The majority of pupils have a positive attitude to learning but a significant number of pupils purposely disrupt learning for themselves and others. These issues have been ongoing seemingly since the school was formed.

References

Educational institutions established in 1990 1990 establishments in England Defunct schools in Gateshead Educational institutions disestablished in 2019 2019 disestablishments in England {{TyneandWear-school-stub