Emmanuel College, Gateshead
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Emmanuel College is a secondary school and sixth form college (years 7-13) based in
Gateshead Gateshead () is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, ...
, England. It was founded in 1990 as a
City Technology College In England, a City Technology College (CTC) is an urban all-ability specialist schoolWalter (2007), p. 6 for students aged 11 to 18 specialising in science, technology and mathematics. They charge no fees and are independent of local authority ...
, i.e. a secondary school which is partly funded by donations from business donors who remain involved in management of the college. Emmanuel is currently one of the three remaining City Technology Colleges in England as the remainder have converted to academies. Emmanuel has 1,553 students (340 of which in the sixth form) aged between 11 and 19, and over 160 staff. It is part of
Emmanuel Schools Foundation The Emmanuel Schools Foundation (ESF) is a charitable trust which has been involved in education since 1989. ESF currently run six schools. The four original members of the ESF are: Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead (opened 1990), The ...
and in each of its four
Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training ...
inspections it has achieved a status of "Outstanding". Students come from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds but predominantly from the urban areas within
Gateshead Gateshead () is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, ...
and Central and West
Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...
.


Intake policy

The college was described by ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' in 2002 as achieving "consistently outstanding academic results", having received a "glowing"
Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training ...
report. By law, the school must admit pupils of mixed ability, according to a
normal distribution In probability theory and statistics, a normal distribution or Gaussian distribution is a type of continuous probability distribution for a real-valued random variable. The general form of its probability density function is f(x) = \frac ...
representative of the whole population. In common with other City Technology Colleges, Emmanuel College uses non-verbal reasoning tests set and marked by the
National Foundation for Educational Research The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) is an educational research charity which creates a range of insights on educational policy and practice that aim to strengthen practice in the classroom and inform and influence policymake ...
, a leading independent research organisation, to assess general intelligence, as opposed to prowess in literacy or mathematics. After marking, the NFER places test results into nine separate categories, and informs the school how many are to be taken from each category. Another condition is that two-thirds of places are given to students considered to be from the most socio-economically deprived wards within its
catchment area A catchment area in human geography, is the area from which a location, such as a city, service or institution, attracts a population that uses its services and economic opportunities. Catchment areas may be defined based on from where people are ...
, with the other third coming from other areas of the catchment area, ensuring a mix not only academically but socially too. In terms of
Sixth Form In the education systems of Barbados, England, Jamaica, Northern Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago, Wales, and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepa ...
admission, a reduced number of places available (130) are offered, with preference to the school's own Year 11 students.


Controversies


Creationism

The school was at the centre of protests from scientists and educationalists when it was revealed that some members of the management team, including both the principal and the head of science, were sympathetic to
Young Earth creationism Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between about 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, contradicting established s ...
and had allowed its hall to be rented by
Answers in Genesis Answers in Genesis (AiG) is an American fundamentalist Christian apologetics parachurch organization. It advocates young Earth creationism on the basis of its literal, historical-grammatical interpretation of the Book of Genesis and the Bib ...
, an organisation which promotes such views. The school includes evolutionary science in its curriculum, but presents evolution as a theory complemented by the theory of creationism (taught in RE lessons). This led to allegations by
Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...
,
John Polkinghorne John Charlton Polkinghorne (16 October 1930 – 9 March 2021) was an English theoretical physicist, theologian, and Anglican priest. A prominent and leading voice explaining the relationship between science and religion, he was professor of ma ...
, and others in 2002 that the school taught creationism in science lessons. In 2002, the Liberal Democrat MP
Jenny Tonge Jennifer Louise Tonge, Baroness Tonge (''née'' Smith; born 19 February 1941) is a politician in the United Kingdom. She was Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond Park in London from 1997 to 2005. In June 2005 she was made ...
asked Prime Minister
Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...
if he was "happy to allow the teaching of creationism alongside Darwin's theory of evolution in state schools". Blair replied that he supported a "diverse school system", and praised the teachers at Emmanuel College for their commitments to "deliver ngbetter results for our children". However, after re-inspecting the material used to teach science at Emmanuel College,
Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training ...
decided that the matter did not need to be pursued further. The next
Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training ...
inspection in 2006 described the school as 'Outstanding' and found no problem with its science provision. Some allegations centred on the school's former head of science, Steven Layfield, who had, prior to his taking up the post, publicly advocated the teaching of
Intelligent Design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins".#Numbers 2006, Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for it ...
in schools in 2000.


Gross misconduct allegation

In the academic year 2013–2014, former teacher of history Mr Daniel McQuoid (son of former principal Nigel McQuoid) engaged in gross misconduct with an 18-year-old student who had left the school; as a result, he resigned in 2014. It was subsequently investigated by both the police and the National College for Teaching and Leadership, which found that there was no evidence of matters serious enough for either police prosecution or for him having any limitations on his ability to teach again.


Authoritarian ethos

In 2003, former teacher of music Cormack O'Duffy painted a negative picture of the college during a discussion with '' TES'' journalist Michael Shaw. O'Duffy was discharged of his position for disobeying an order from the then principal Nigel McQuoid for vocally voicing his concerns about the school; however, O'Duffy's union provided legal support and the case against him was dropped. During the interview, O'Duffy described the school as a place of 'eerie silence' and an institution of immense regulation: "With its quiet atmosphere, you might easily think you had entered the set of a
James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
movie where all the workers at the plant are focused on a task and have no time for frivolity." Furthermore, O'Duffy raised concerns about the nature of the Christian ethos claiming an over-emphasis on hell.


Notable alumni

* Michelle Heaton, pop singer, former member of Liberty X * Sean Tomes, former
Rugby Union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...
player for
Newcastle Falcons Newcastle Falcons is a rugby union team that play in Premiership Rugby, England's highest division of rugby union. The club was established in 1877 as the Gosforth Football Club. Around 1882 the club merged with the Northumberland Football Cl ...
* Jonny Rowell, professional footballer who has played in the
Belgian Pro League The Belgian Pro League (; ; ), officially the Jupiler Pro League () for sponsor Jupiler, is a professional association football league in Belgium and the highest level of the Belgian football league system. Contested by 16 clubs from the 2023 ...
* Benjamin Satterley, professional wrestler currently signed to
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and previously with
WWE World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is an American professional wrestling promotion. It is owned and operated by TKO Group Holdings, a majority-owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. A global integrated media and entertainment company, ...
* Jay Gardner, reality TV star formerly of
Geordie Shore ''Geordie Shore'' is an English reality television series that has been broadcast on MTV UK from 24 May 2011. Based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, it was the British offshoot of the American show ''Jersey Shore''. The programme follows the d ...


Other Emmanuel Schools


References


External links


Emmanuel College
official website
Department for Children, Schools and Families – EduBase2 – Emmanuel College
{{authority control City technology colleges in England Secondary schools in Gateshead Educational institutions established in 1990 1990 establishments in England Emmanuel Schools Foundation