Westwood College, formerly known as Westwood High School is a
mixed upper school located in
Leek, Staffordshire, England. Westwood is set in the grounds of
Westwood Hall
Westwood Hall is a former stately home in Leek, Staffordshire, England.
It is a Grade II listed building. It has been a school since 1921, and is now Westwood College.
Description
The house, extended from an existing building, was created from ...
, an old manor house built in the 17th century, once lived in by the
Davenport family, famous Stoke-on-Trent potters. The house was built over an existing house that is said to have belonged to one of Henry VIII's favourite Knights,
Francis Talbot.
School Website
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History
Westwood is divided into two parts known as 'Old Hall', the old manor house, and New 'Hall', opened in 1963 accompanied by a house of the same type of architecture. 'Old Hall' consists of the stables, caretaker's house, four mobiles, summerhouse, sixth form cafeteria, English block and the manor house itself. Westwood was extended largely in the 1980s to house the new science block, formerly in New Hall where the art and design department now resides. New Hall consists of the 1960s building and the bungalow.
Aside from the numerous different architectural builds in Westwood College, there are woods, a bus park, cafeteria gardens, an AstroTurf football pitch, four tennis courts, fields, lawns, sports field and a Victorian garden. This garden was restored in 2005 by the Peak District back to its former glory. The original well and fountain remain but are now fenced off to prevent students falling in.
Grammar school
The school was the Westwood Hall Girls' High School, a girls' grammar school.
Comprehensive
It was previously a foundation school
In England and Wales, a foundation school is a state-funded school in which the governing body has greater freedom in the running of the school than in community schools.
Foundation schools were set up under the School Standards and Framework A ...
administered by Staffordshire County Council, and specialising in both Modern Languages
A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead classical languages such a ...
and Visual Arts. However, in April 2016 Westwood College was converted to academy status. The school continues to coordinate with Staffordshire County Council for admissions.
Notable former pupils
* Anna Bebington, British Olympic
Olympic or Olympics may refer to
Sports
Competitions
* Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896
** Summer Olympic Games
** Winter Olympic Games
* Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...
Rower
* Tom Levitt, Labour MP from 1997 to 2010 for High Peak
* Lee Pearson
Sir David Lee Pearson (born 4 February 1974) is a 14-times Paralympic Games gold medallist, having represented British para-equestrianism in Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London, Rio, and Tokyo. Over the course of his career he has won 30 gold med ...
, Paralympic Equestrian Gold-medallist
* Jessica Sylvester
Jessica Aimee Sylvester (born 9 July 1987 in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire) is a British freestyle swimmer.
Sylvester represented Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Great Britain, represented by the British Olympic Association (B ...
, swimmer in the 2008 Summer Olympics
Westwood Hall Girls' High School
* Dame Averil Cameron, Warden from 1994 to 2020 of Keble College, Oxford
Keble College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the University Museum and the University Parks. The college is bordered to the north by Keble Road, to th ...
, and a former professor of Late Antique and Byzantine History
References
External links
Westwood College, Leek
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Academies in Staffordshire
Leek, Staffordshire
Upper schools in Staffordshire