Castleford High School Technology and Sports College
Encyclopedia
Castleford Academy is a high school in Castleford
Castleford
Castleford is the largest of the "five towns" district in the metropolitan borough of the City of Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, England. It is near Pontefract, and has a population of 37,525 according to the 2001 Census, but has seen a rise in recent years and is now around 45-50,000. To the north...

, West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 for children aged 11–16.

History

It opened in 1906 as Castleford Secondary School, a grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

 for both sexes. It aimed to teach girls with male staff and boys with female staff, which was not common for that time. It joined with a secondary modern school
Secondary modern school
A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that existed in most of the United Kingdom from 1944 until the early 1970s, under the Tripartite System, and was designed for the majority of pupils - those who do not achieve scores in the top 25% of the eleven plus examination...

 in 1973 to become a comprehensive school
Comprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...

. School uniform was abolished at the same time. From 1989, a partnership was developed with Hickson and Welch, a local chemical company and school uniform was re-introduced and the school became a Technology College
Technology College
Technology College is a term used in the United Kingdom for a secondary specialist school that focuses on design and technology, mathematics and science. These were the first type of specialist schools, beginning in 1994. In 2008 there were 598 Technology Colleges in England, of which 12 also...

. From 1995, a new drama theatre was built.

As of September 2007 it officially became known as Castleford High School Technology and Sports College due to success of the rugby, football and netball teams netting them a Sports College
Sports College
Sports Colleges were introduced in 1997 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in the United Kingdom. The system enables secondary schools to specialise in certain fields, in this case, PE, sports and dance. Schools that successfully apply to the Specialist Schools Trust and become Sports...

 classification.

The school's boys and girls rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

 teams have been a dominant force in the Champion Schools
Champion Schools
The Champion Schools tournament is a full contact knock-out rugby league football competition open to every secondary school in England, Scotland and Wales and is the largest rugby league tournament in the World "RFL-13-05-07" The competition is operated by the Rugby Football League and the...

 competition; in 2009 the school fielded 6 teams in the national finals for the third year in succession.

On 1 April 2011, the school became Castleford Academy, a move that would allow them to set their own curriculum.

Admissions

It is for ages 11 to 16. It is just off the A656 on Ferrybridge
Ferrybridge
Ferrybridge is a village in West Yorkshire, England at a historically important crossing of the River Aire. It is linked to other communities by the A1, which follows the route of the Great North Road....

 Road
and just east of the town centre next to Queen's Park.

Academic performance

The school gets reasonable results at GCSE for West Yorkshire, well above the England average. There is no sixth form college in Castleford, although NEW College is located nearby, and Castleford Academy now offer a Sports A level.

Arson

The school has suffered from one incident of arson, with a fire on 4 January 2007 started by three teenagers. It was put out by ten fire engines. It completely gutted the sports hall.

Alumni

  • Bombardier
    Bombardier (rank)
    Bombardier is a rank used in artillery units in the armies of Commonwealth countries instead of corporal. Lance-bombardier is used instead of lance-corporal....

     Craig Hopson, of the 40th Regiment Royal Artillery
    40th Regiment Royal Artillery
    40th Regiment Royal Artillery – The Lowland Gunners – is a regiment of the Royal Artillery in the British Army. It currently supports 19 Light Brigade in the field artillery role. It is structured into Fire Support Teams equipped with MSTAR, and the regiment's three gun batteries are equipped with...

    , killed in Afghanistan on 25 July 2009 whilst travelling in a Jackal (MWMIK)

Castleford Grammar School

  • Nigel Beard
    Nigel Beard
    Christopher Nigel Beard, known as Nigel Beard, is a British politician. He was Labour Party Member of Parliament for Bexleyheath and Crayford in London from 1997 to 2005....

    , Labour MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford
    Bexleyheath and Crayford (UK Parliament constituency)
    -Elections in the 2000s:-Elections in the 1990s:-See also:*List of Parliamentary constituencies in Greater London*David Evennett Wikipedia page**Howard Dawber Wikipedia page**-References:...

     from 1997-2005
  • John Durham, Ambassador to Mongolia from 1997-9
  • Henry Moore
    Henry Moore
    Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....

     OM CH, sculptor
  • Tim Bresnan
    Tim Bresnan
    Timothy 'Tim' Thomas Bresnan is an English cricketer. He is a fast-medium bowler, as well as being respected for his ability with the bat for Yorkshire. He normally fields in the deep. He won the NBC Denis Compton Award in 2002 and 2003. In June 2006 he was called up to the England One Day...

    , English and Yorkshire
    Yorkshire County Cricket Club
    Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....

     Cricket
    Cricket
    Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

    player from 1995-2001

External links


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