Hills Road Sixth Form College

Hills Road Sixth Form College was established on 15 September 1974 on the site of the former Cambridgeshire High School for Boys.{{cite web | url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/2aa31471-f91d-36d8-9bd0-a3600831558e | title=Records of Hills Road Sixth Form College (Formerly the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys, the Cambridgeshire and County High School for Boys and the Cambridge and County School for Boys) – Archives Hub }} It was founded as part of the transition to a comprehensive education system in Cambridgeshire, which replaced grammar schools and secondary moderns with a structure based on 11–16 comprehensive schools and sixth form colleges.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

Since its foundation, the college has expanded its campus with a number of new facilities. The Sports and Tennis Centre opened in 1995. The Colin Greenhalgh Building, which houses English, modern languages, and history, was added soon after. In 2004, the Rob Wilkinson Building was developed to accommodate the physics, chemistry, and computer science departments. The following year, the Margaret Ingram Guidance Centre was opened to provide specialist tutorial space. The Linda Sinclair Building, opened in 2016, houses the mathematics and physical education departments.{{cite web |date=5 October 2016 |title=The Linda Sinclair Building |url=https://hrcn.hillsroad.ac.uk/news/new-building/53/53-The-Linda-Sinclair-Building |access-date=2 October 2023 |website=Hills Road Community Network }} In 2023, the Study Centre was opened, offering additional student study areas and a rooftop staff facility.{{cite web |date=26 April 2023 |title=State-of-the-art Study Centre opens at Hills Road Sixth Form College |url=https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/state-of-the-art-study-centre-opens-at-hills-road-sixth-form-9309986/ |access-date=2 October 2023 |website=Cambridge Independent }}{{cite web |title=Hills Road Sixth Form College Secures £3.2 Million of Post-16 Capacity Funding to Build New Study Space and Social Areas |url=https://www.hillsroad.ac.uk/about-us/news-and-events/2021/11/09/hills-road-sixth-form-college-secures-3.2-million-of-post-16-capacity-funding-to-build-new-study-space-and-social-areas |access-date=2 October 2023 |website=www.hillsroad.ac.uk }}

Although the college had proposed a major campus redesign between 2010 and 2013, the scope of the project was reduced due to the economic climate. Nonetheless, upgrades were made in 2010 to administrative areas and teaching spaces, including additional classrooms for physical sciences, psychology, and art, an expanded and relocated staffroom, a partially refurbished library, a new resource area, and a rebuilt student social space.

In the early 1990s, responsibility for further education was transferred from local authorities to central government. Like other further education colleges, Hills Road began receiving direct public funding.

{{alumni|date=October 2023}}

• Alison Balsom – trumpeter signed with EMI Classics
• Anthony Browne- Member of Parliament for South Cambridgeshire 2019-2024{{cite web |last= |last2= |date=28 January 2020 |title=Meet South Cambs MP Anthony Browne: Shot at by the Americans and credited on Oliver Stone film |url=https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/meet-south-cambs-mp-anthony-browne-shot-at-by-the-americans-and-credited-on-oliver-stone-film-9097722/ |access-date=8 August 2023 |website=Cambridge Independent }}{{Cite web |date=2024-07-05 |title=Liberal Democrat Ian Sollom defeats Conservative Anthony Browne to win new St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire seat |url=https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/liberal-democrat-ian-sollom-defeats-conservative-anthony-bro-9373379/ |access-date=2024-08-28 |website=Cambridge Independent |language=en}}
• Catherine Banner – author
• Cavetown – singer, songwriter, musician, and YouTuber
• Benedict Cork – singer, songwriter, musician
• Milo Edwards – comedian, writer, and podcaster
• Alice Hewkin – actress"Cambridge Venture – The Silk Stories". Connected Cambridge. 22 August 2015. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
• Tom Hunt - Member of Parliament for Ipswich 2019-2024{{Cite web |title=Parliamentary career for Tom Hunt - MPs and Lords - UK Parliament |url=https://members.parliament.uk/member/4771/career |access-date=28 August 2024 |website=UK Parliament}}
• Hector Janse van Rensburg – watercolour painter, also known as Shitty Watercolour
• Katie Rowley Jones – West End actress
• Tim Key – comedian and poet
• Dave Lewis – former Tesco CEO
• Nemone Metaxas – radio DJ
• Lucy Parker - professional footballer for Aston Villa W.F.C. and England women's national football team1.Lucy Parker [Internet]. Hills Road Sixth Form College. 2023 [cited 2025 Apr 11]. Available from: https://www.hillsroad.ac.uk/success-stories/lucy-parker

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• Mark Pettini, Essex County cricketer (and former captain). Former member of England Under-19 team
• Surie – Singer, representing the United Kingdom in the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Storm"
• Ben Thapa – member of male singing quartet G4
• Tom Westley, Essex County England Test cricketer and captain of England Under-19 at the 2008 Under-19 Cricket World Cup
• Lydia White – actress and singer
• Martin Amis – novelist and son of Sir Kingsley Amis, records in his autobiography "Experience" that he attended the school while his father Kingsley Amis and his mother Hilary were living off Madingley Road, where he was described by one headmaster as "unusually unpromising".{{cite news |date=22 July 2008 |title=Martin Amis |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/09/martinamis |access-date=8 August 2023 |issn=0261-3077}}
• Syd Barrett and Roger Waters of the rock band Pink Floyd;{{cite web |last=Tarasewicz |first=Adam |date=13 July 2019 |title=10 things you only know if you went to Hills Road Sixth Form |url=https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/know-cambridge-hills-road-sixthform-16576969 |access-date=8 August 2023 |website=CambridgeshireLive }} there is a suggestion that the song Another Brick in the Wall Part II, written by Waters, which includes the lyrics "we don't need no education", bears reference to Waters' miserable stint endured whilst at the County High School for Boys.{{cite web |title=Town vs Gown: The Perse School and Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/3288197/Town-vs-Gown-The-Perse-School-and-Hills-Road-Sixth-Form-College-in-Cambridge.html |access-date=8 August 2023 |website=www.telegraph.co.uk|date=30 October 2008 }}
• Sir John Bradfield – Founder of Cambridge Science Park, the first Science Park in Europe.{{cite web |title=Cambridge & County High School for Boys / Hills Road Sixth Form College {{!}} Capturing Cambridge |url=https://capturingcambridge.org/queen-ediths/cambridgeshire-high-school-hills-road-sixth-form-college/ |access-date=8 August 2023 }}https://web.archive.org/web/20110716115304/http://www.addenbrookes.org.uk/news/news2007/jan/former_chairman_knighted.html
• Bob Klose – an early member of Pink Floyd
• Storm Thorgerson – co-founder of the Hipgnosis partnership, who designed record covers for artists including Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Genesis and Muse
• Charles Benstead, cricketer and Royal Navy officer
• Peter Fluck, artist and sculptor, co-creator of the satirical TV show Spitting Image
• Sir Clive Granger, economist, won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2003
• Prof Freddy Marshall, marine biologist, and Professor of Zoology from 1972–7 at Queen Mary, University of London
• David Parker, a Western Australian politician who served as Deputy Premier from 1988 until 1990.
• Sidney Peters, Liberal MP from 1929 to 1945 for Huntingdonshire
• Sir Hayden Phillips (former Permanent Secretary, Department for National Heritage/Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Lord Chancellor's Department/Department for Constitutional Affairs)
• Sir David Robinson
• William T. Stearn, botanist
• Sir Kevin Tebbit (former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence)
• Mark Tout, the British bobsleigher, was a member of the team which finished fifth at the Winter Olympics of 1994. In the team was second in the World Bobsleigh Championships. He subsequently made regular appearances as a team member on A Question of Sport.
• William (Bill) Tutte, mathematical genius responsible for breaking the Tunny Code (the Lorenz Code), at Bletchley Park in 1941. Tunny (also known as Fish) was an extensively-used German Second World War cypher more complex than the Enigma code, used by Hitler personally. Tutte went to Cambridgeshire High School on a scholarship in 1928, aged 11, and went on to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1935.'Surveys in Combinatronics', 2003, CUP, Wensley C.D. After the war he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

In January 2014 Hills Road was named the "creme de la creme" of state schools by Tatler Magazine, and included in Tatler's list of thirty elite state school in the United Kingdom.{{cite web |url=http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Education/Education-news/Cambridges-Hills-Road-Sixth-Form-College-named-among-the-best-state-schools-in-the-country-says-posh-Tatler-magazine-20140104060045.htm |title=Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge named among the best state schools in the country by upmarket Tatler magazine | Cambridge News | Education | Education-news |access-date=11 January 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111091739/http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Education/Education-news/Cambridges-Hills-Road-Sixth-Form-College-named-among-the-best-state-schools-in-the-country-says-posh-Tatler-magazine-20140104060045.htm |archive-date=11 January 2014 }} The 2009 Alps Report placed the College third in the sixth form college performance table and in the top 1% for all institutions.{{cite web |url=http://www.alps-va.co.uk/Our-Services/Alps/Schools-Colleges |title=Alps analysis reports and training for schools and colleges |access-date=18 August 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110903202104/http://www.alps-va.co.uk/Our-Services/Alps/Schools-Colleges |archive-date=3 September 2011 }} According to the 2009 edition of the BBC's English school tables, the school's student have performed above average in A-Level examinations.{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/education/09/school_tables/secondary_schools/html/873_8600.stm|title=BBC NEWS – Education – League Tables – Performance results for Hills Road Sixth Form College|website=news.bbc.co.uk}}

The college has achieved an Ofsted rating of 'Outstanding' from its first inspection in 2001.{{cite web |url=https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/40/130615 |title=Hills Road Sixth Form College Ofsted rating |date=6 August 2019 }} OFSTED. Retrieved on 6 August 2019.

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Category:Sixth form colleges in Cambridgeshire