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Glossopdale Community College

Glossopdale Community College is a secondary school in Glossop, Derbyshire, England.

History

The school used to be the Glossop Grammar School from the 1920s, being on Talbot Road since 1959, becoming Glossop Comprehensive School in 1965 when it merged with West End Secondary Modern (on Sunlaws Street and Chadwick Street and opened in 1913 as Glossop Independent Council School). These are now sites of the same school. In 1959, the grammar school commissioned a painting called Mill Scene, by LS Lowry for 17s 6d. It was sold in June 2007 at Christie's for around £200,000.

In 1989, the former Hadfield Comprehensive School on Newshaw Lane in Hadfield (former Castle Secondary Modern school before 1971) merged with the Glossop School to form the Glossopdale School. The Chadwick Street site is next to the St Philip Howard RC School (Glossop's other secondary school) on St Mary's Road.

Admissions

The school is spread over three sites; Hadfield, Glossop and Talbot House. The youngest students attend Hadfield site on Newshaw Lane, Hadfield. When the students move into year 9 they move to Glossop Site on Talbot Road, Glossop. There is also a Sixth Form College in Talbot House, also situated on Talbot Road. Parts of the school are old and are in need of replacing as, until the recent £1.5m arts college grant, Glossopdale had been given no funding by the council. It is rumoured that Mr Hart spent the £1.5m quickly on improving the school in order to keep it out of "the taxman's" hands and as a result, the school is £600,000 in debt, however this is just speculation and is denied by Glossopdale. A minority of students have behaved in a manner that has meant that the bad reputation Glossopdale gained when it was run by the previous headteacher has continued to stay with the school even though it has improved. The school is part of a pilot scheme called C3 involving the year 7 and 8 students taking part in a project based curriculum. Glossopdale has also taken part in several teachers' television documentaries. John Hart was asked to leave the school at the end of 2008 to take up a government arts initiative.

Specialist Arts School status

In 2002 the school successfully applied to become a Specialist Arts College. Thanks in part to the sale of two paintings by L.S. Lowry.

Houses

The students at Glossopdale are split into three Houses; Lowry, Cavendish and Westwood. Each House is named after a family or person with some close association to either the school or the Glossop area. Brothers and sisters are placed into the same house and all the teachers have their own house group for example, the Principal Mr Hart is in Lowry.

Acedemic performance

It gets average results at GCSE but below average results for A level.

Alumni

As Glossop Grammar School

Dame Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer
Stuart Hall, TV and radio presenter - famous for It's a Knockout and his grandiose-style football commentaries.