THE shake-up of education in Lutterworth that will see the high school and college compete for pupils for the first time has been given the go ahead.
Currently Lutterworth High School admits 11 to 14-year-olds before they move onto Lutterworth College – formerly known as the grammar school – where they sit their GCSEs and A Levels.
But from August 2015 both will teach 11 to 16-years-olds although the college will continue to provide all A Level education in the town.
The schools have been working together on the plan with respective head teachers insisting it would improve education standards in the town.
Andrew Cooper, executive principal of Lutterworth College, described it as the biggest change in the school’s 134-year-old history while Nora Park, head teacher at the High School, said it was great news.
We reported in October how it would lead to a significant reduction in class sizes with the number of pupils per year group proposed at 150 at the high school and 240 at the college. This year’s intake at each was 257 and 628 respectively.
The high school became an academy in 2011 and is currently rated as Outstanding by Ofsted while the college, which is a larger than average school with around 1,900 pupils followed suit in 2012 and has a Good Ofsted rating. It converted to academy status in 2012.
“We are very excited by this news. Parents have been ringing me up for weeks asking if we had got approval to accept 11-year-olds. Now we can put all our exciting plans into action,” Mr Cooper added.
“We know from talking to parents that many families will welcome the opportunity to send their child to one school from the age of 11 all the way through to 18.”
Mrs Park, writing in the school’s recent newsletter, said all staff were looking forward to what she said would be a new challenge for them all.
“It is a fairly regular topic of conversation among staff and students and I have been encouraged to hear so many people talk so enthusiastically about the many opportunities teaching GCSE will present for us all,” she wrote.
“I have therefore every confidence our first cohort of GCSE students will achieve results in 2017 of which we can be justifiably proud.”
The new Sir Frank Whittle Studio School, sponsored by the college for 14 to 19-year-olds and specialising in engineering, retail and logistics, and hospitality and leisure, will open later this year.
