Hummersknott Academy

Hummersknott Academy

Established	1955
Type	Secondary school
Head Teacher	Mr Pat Howarth
Location	Edinburgh Drive Darlington DL3 8AR England
Students	1245
Ages	11–16
Telephone	[phone]
Fax	[phone]
Website	Hummersknott Academy

Hummersknott Academy is a secondary school in Darlington in the north east of England. It schools approximately 1250 pupils aged eleven to sixteen. It has specialist Language College status. Although situated in a fairly affluent area, the school serves students from across Darlington, including areas of high social and economic disadvantage.

It was redesignated as a specialist language college in 2005 and holds accreditations for Artsmark Silver, Eco-schools Silver, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents silver award for Health and Safety and an International School Award. An Ofsted report in November 2009 detailed the 'overall effectiveness of the school' as grade 2 ^[1], which is classified as 'good'. The Ofsted report also concluded that 'Hummersknott is a good school with a number of outstanding features' and 'the curriculum is good and improving'.

History

The school began life as the Darlington High School for Girls in 1955, a girls' grammar school. It was officially opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on 15 November 1955. In 1968 it was reorganised by the then Darlington County Borough to form one of six 11-16 co-educational comprehensive schools, with the Boys' Grammar School becoming a Sixth Form college nearer the town centre and near to the College of Technology.

New build

In July, 2007 a £15 million scheme to demolish and replace some school buildings and renovate others was initiated. The bulk of the funding was provided by national government, with the local council providing £2.7m, and the school £0.7m. Work began on the school building during the Summer of 2007, although plans for the new design were drawn up a year earlier.^[2] The work was completed in 2010 and the refurbished school was 'reopened' by the Duke of Gloucester in September 2010.

Academy Trust

The school became a self-governing Academy, under the name Hummersknott Academy on 1 July 2011. It is operated by the Hummersknott Academy Trust, a company limited by guarantee.

House and college reform

Originally, when a grammar school for girls the School had six houses into which all pupils were distributed and these houses competed against each other in sporting and music competitions for the honour of winning the House Shield. The shields of each house can be seen above the doorways on the front of the school building. These houses were: Barret, Bede, Caedmon, Carroll, St. Hild and Wycliffe. The house system was changed in the late 1980s and the school played host to four houses: Dunelm, Edinburgh, Starmer, and Trinity.

In July 2006 these were phased out and replaced by a system of colleges.

Colleges

Pupils are divided into five colleges named after a variety of cultural and local aspects of life, across Darlington and the wider north east of England:

• Cuthbert (college colour - yellow), was named after St. Cuthbert whose cross can be seen on the school badge.
• Ketton (college colour - purple), was named after the famous Ketton Ox
• Quaker (college colour - green), was named after the Religious group Quakers who were inhabitants of Darlington.
• Stephenson (college colour - red), was named after George Stephenson.
• Wyvern (college colour - blue), was named after the famous Wyvern dragon, which is also visible on the school badge.

Each college is divided up into two forms, using the first letter from the name of the college, followed by the form tutor's code number. The alpha numeric code starts with the year at which the pupil is currently in, followed by one of the college first initial. E.g. A pupil who is in a year eight class and belongs to college Quaker would have '8Q' at the beginning. To follow on, the latter part of the code has the numbers derived from which ever subject that form tutor teachers; for example, English constitutes an 'E' at the start of the code, and from two letters from the teacher's surname. Staying with the former example of an year eight pupil in Quaker college, and said pupil has a history teacher called Robert Smith, as their form tutor; then the code would follow '8Q-HRB'.

College	Departments	Head of College
Cuthbert	Humanities	Mr Bailey
Ketton	Science and PE	Mrs Farry
Quaker	Languages,ICT and Business	Mrs Farnell
Stephenson	Maths and Design Technology	Mr Janes
Wyvern	English and Performing Arts	Mrs Still

The College Music Festival

Each year the College Music Festival is held within the first six weeks of returning to school. The College Music Festival comprises three sections:

• dance,
• choir and
• ensemble.

A change to the College Music Festival within the past few years has been the introduction of a theme, examples include colour and the Olympics.

Notable alumni

• Colin Atkinson, cricketer and Headmaster of Millfield School

The Lesotho project

The school is currently linking with the less economically developed country of Lesotho. Pupils and teachers are working together to raise money for the country. The school has helped to provide equipment, such as computers and contraceptives to a school in Lesotho. Pupils studying GCSE Religious Studies have the opportunity to visit Lesotho and the linked schools, at a time during the course.

References

1. ^ Ofsted
2. ^ Work starts on £15m school scheme BBC.co.uk 22 July 2007

External links

• Hummersknott Academy Website
• School Portal
• EduBase

Coordinates: 54°31′18″N 1°35′38″W / 54.5217°N 1.5940°W / 54.5217; -1.5940