| Established | 1974 |
|---|---|
| Type | Secondary school |
| Principle | Maura Regan |
| Location | The Headlands Darlington County Durham DL3 8RW England |
| Ages | 11–18 |
| Telephone | +44 (0)1325 254525 |
| Fax | +44 (0)1325 254335 |
| Website | Carmel College, A Catholic Academy |
For schools of the same name, see Carmel College.
Carmel College, A Catholic Academy[1] (formerly Carmel RC College) is a secondary school on The Headlands in Hummersknott, Darlington, England. It also has a small sixth form college, admitting about 100 students each year, compared to the much larger Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College and Darlington College. Following a recent OFSTED inspection, Carmel was graded as outstanding in all categories.
The current principal is Miss Maura Regan.
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It is the town's only Catholic secondary school. It has four main feeder schools at Primary level. These are St Teresa's RC Primary, St Bede's RC Primary, St Augustine's RC Primary and Holy Family RC Primary. There is also another school, Abbey Road Junior School, which feeds Carmel; although this school is not Catholic, it is local with Carmel. Carmel also has a sixth form college, which is attached to the school.
Carmel College: a Catholic Academy has six forms which consist of C, A, R, M, E, L with three houses St. Aidans, St. Bedes and St. Cuthberts.
It began life as St Mary's Grammar School, a boys' grammar school, becoming comprehensive and co-educational in September 1974 when it merged with the Immaculate Conception Grammar School, a girls' Catholic grammar school.
The new John Caden Hall was opened by former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair, and is named after Father John Caden, who is celebrating sixty years as a priest this year.
Carmel recently underwent a multi-million pound building project, which included three brand new teaching blocks and the refurbishment of many of the old facilities. This was completed in Summer 2008, and were opened for students in September 2008. They were officially opened by Alan Milburn, Member of Parliament for Darlington. Carmel also upgraded its Sixth Form facilities; expanding the common room and providing a learning resource centre in the schools library. This was carried out in Summer 2010, and opened the following school year. The canteen areas were also refurbished at this time.
Tony Blair paid his last school visit as Prime Minister in 2007 at Carmel before he resigned.
On 1st November 2011, Carmel RC College was officially closed, and Carmel College: A Catholic Academy was opened, as the school converted to an academy on this date.
Zoe Birkett (runner up for Pop Idol in 2001) attended Carmel during her time on Pop Idol.
It regularly achieves the best GCSE results in Darlington, and in the top five schools at GCSE in the north-east. It performs in the top twenty state schools at A level in the North East.
The college has always had an excellent pass rate in GCSEs, Sats, etc. Its most recent GCSE passes (summer 2009) were the best to date, having 94% of students getting at least 5 A*-C GCSE certificates (80% including English and Mathematics), and 99.7% of 16+ students achieving A-E grades in A-levels.[2]