The Wellington Academy, founded in 2009, is an 11–19 non-selective state-funded school near

Ludgershall, Wiltshire Ludgershall ( , with a hard g) is a town and civil parish north east of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It is on the A342 road between Devizes and Andover. The parish includes Faberstown which is contiguous with Ludgershall, and the hamlet o ...

, England. The school has

academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

status and was initially supported by

Wellington College Wellington College may refer to: *Wellington College, Berkshire, an independent school in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England ** Wellington College International Shanghai ** Wellington College International Tianjin * Wellington College, Wellington, Ne ...

, an independent school in Berkshire.

History

The Wellington Academy opened in 2009 on the site of an earlier school. Its new building was designed by London-based architects BDP, built by Kier, and was shortlisted in the best academy category for the

Building Schools for the Future Building Schools for the Future (BSF) was the name given to the British government's investment programme in secondary school buildings in England in the 2000s. The programme was ambitious in its costs, timescales and objectives, with politicia ...

Awards in 2009. The President of the academy is the Duke of York, who performed the official opening of the new campus in November 2011. The first Headteacher was Andy Schofield who oversaw its set-up, doubled its size to over 1,000 pupils and established its

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 ...

Characteristics

The school's site is in

Tidworth Tidworth is a garrison town and civil parish in south-east Wiltshire, England, on the eastern edge of Salisbury Plain. Lying on both sides of the A338 about north of the A303 primary route, the town is approximately west of Andover, south ...

parish, about south-west of the town of Ludgershall, on the

A3026 road List of A roads in zone 3 in Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island ...

towards Tidworth. The campus houses a community sports and fitness centre with bowling green, a hair salon, a cadet centre with indoor shooting range, twin boarding houses for 100 pupils and Castledown FM's radio studios. The academy has a skills centre in the adjacent Castledown Business Park. The school is near to

Tidworth Garrison Tidworth Camp is a military installation at Tidworth in Wiltshire, England. It forms part of the Tidworth, Netheravon and Bulford (TidNBul) Garrison. History The Camp was established when the War Office acquired a 19th-century mansion – Tedw ...

on Salisbury Plain, and in 2011 almost half of the school's pupils came from service families.

School performance

The Wellington Academy's first set of results in 2010 established the school as one of Wiltshire's highest performing. Summer of 2015 saw the academy achieve its best exam results for both GCSE and GCE. The academy was visited by Ofsted in December 2010 and was deemed to have made outstanding progress since opening. As of 2022, the school's most recent inspection was in 2016, with an outcome of Good.

Predecessors

The first school on the site was Tidworth Down School, a

secondary modern A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Schools of this type continue in Northern Ireland, where they are usuall ...

which opened in 1940. From 1965 the school was for boys only, with girls attending the newly built Ludgershall Castle School, then in 1978 the girls rejoined the boys and Tidworth Down was renamed Castledown School, a comprehensive.

References

External links