Coleridge Community College

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}}

{{Use British English|date=February 2023}}

{{Infobox school

| name = Coleridge Community College

| image =

| coordinates = {{coord|52.194|0.153|type:edu_region:GB_dim:100|format=dec|display=inline,title}}

| motto =

| established =

| closed =

| type = Academy

| religious_affiliation = None

| president =

| head_label = Principal

| head = Matt Oughton

| r_head_label =

| r_head =

| chair_label =

| chair = Victoria Espley {{Cite web|url=https://www.coleridgecc.org.uk/about-us/key-information/governance|title=Coleridge Community College > ABOUT US > Key Information > Governance}}

| founder =

| specialist =

| address = Radegund Road

| city = Cambridge

| county = Cambridgeshire

| country = England

| postcode = CB1 3RJ

| local_authority = Cambridgeshire

| urn = 136650

| ofsted = yes

| staff =

| enrolment =

| gender = Coeducational

| lower_age = 11

| upper_age = 16

| houses = Davies, Clarke, Attenborough & Taylor

| colours = Red, Purple, Green & Yellow

| publication =

| free_label_1 =

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| website = {{URL|https://www.coleridgecc.org.uk}}

}}

Coleridge Community College is a secondary academy school with 750 places for children aged 11–16, situated on Radegund Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. The school is a member of the United Learning Cambridge Cluster{{Cite web |title=United Learning Cambridge Cluster |url=http://cap.education/ |access-date=2022-03-17 |website=cap.education}} (formerly the Parkside Federation and the Cambridge Academic Partnership) along with Parkside Community College, Trumpington Community College, Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology (formerly UTC Cambridge), and Parkside Sixth. It joined Parkside Community College to form the Parkside Federation in 2005, after having been placed in special measures in 2003.https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/787289{{Dead link|date=May 2025 |fix-attempted=yes |url=}} {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}} An Ofsted report in 2019{{Cite web|url=https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/23/136650|title=Find an inspection report and registered childcare|date=8 October 2020}} rated it as good, under the leadership of headteacher Mark Patterson. Cambridge Academic Partnership joined the United Learning academy as a unit in September 2019.

Originally two segregated schools, the Coleridge Secondary Modern School for Boys was located in the right half and the Coleridge Secondary Modern School for Girls in the left half of the mirror-image twin main building, with a separate dedicated gymnasium located behind the Girls' school, and prefabricated classroom outbuildings surrounding its internal playing fields at the rear of the Boys' school. The two schools were merged into a comprehensive school from the 1966 school year as part of the national reorganisation of secondary and grammar schools.A F Wareham and A P M Wright, 'Cherry Hinton: Education', in A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (North-Eastern Cambridgeshire) (London, 2002), pp. 116-117. [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol10/pp116-117 British History Online]

Criticism of behaviour policy

In December 2021 a student-made petition on Change.org said that the school had transformed from a "safe have"' to a "negative environment which resembles a prison", asking for these "derogatory rules to be demonised". A parent was interviewed in the local news and described the school as a "camp" because children were given report cards. A former student was interviewed and said "You always felt like you were doing something wrong". Daniel Zeichner, the Labour Party UK MP for Cambridge, said "I found some of the attitudes of the trust hard to take. It was very much 'this is United Learning’s approach and that's the way it is'". A United Learning spokesperson for the college said that the behaviour policy had been 'successfully put in place' but that local parents are 'entitled to complain'.{{Cite web|date=2021-12-17|title=Parents claim school's 'draconian' rules shame pupils for wearing wrong socks|url=https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2021-12-17/cambridge-coleridge-parents-claim-schools-draconian-rules-shame-pupils-for-wearing-wrong-socks|access-date=2022-01-29|website=ITV News|language=en}}

Notable alumni

Notable staff

  • Ted Hughes, poet and writer, worked at Coleridge

References

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