| Established | 1970 |
|---|---|
| Type | Community comprehensive |
| Principals | Mike Chivers and Rukhsana Sheikh |
| Specialisms | Sport and Maths and Computing |
| Location | Beechcroft Road Tooting London SW17 7DF England |
| Local authority | Wandsworth |
| DfE URN | 101053 |
| Ofsted | Reports |
| Students | c. 1100 |
| Gender | Boys |
| Ages | 11–18 |
| Website | www.ernestbevin.org.uk |
Ernest Bevin College is a specialist college in Tooting, London, England. The school is all-boys for ages 11 through 18, but has a co-educational sixth form. It has about 1173 pupils.
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The school was named after Ernest Bevin (1881–1951), a British labour leader and politician. It was formed through merging the two adjacent schools of Bec Grammar and Hillcroft Secondary Modern in 1970. The school was briefly named Bec-Hillcroft until 1971, at which point it became Ernest Bevin School and eventually in 1996 Ernest Bevin College.
Hillcroft Secondary School, Bec-Hillcroft and Ernest Bevin School ran under the aegis of the Inner London Education Authority until it was abolished by the Education Reform Act 1988. Since then the school has been run by the London Borough of Wandsworth.
Ernest Bevin College has been a specialist college for Sport since 2000. Because of improvement in academic achievement, the college was offered a second specialism in Mathematics and Computing in 2004.
Ernest Bevin College, like most secondary schools, has a strict dress code. The school uniform for key stages 3 and 4 (years 7–11) is a white shirt, optional black V-neck jumper, black trousers, black shoes, black blazer with Ernest Bevin phoenix and flames logo on the left pocket, and a colour-striped tie representing the student's year group.
Red, green, purple, yellow and blue are the tie colours representing each year group. When a student joins in year 7, they are given the colour which was the colour to the year 11 the previous academic year. This tie colour remains the same for the remainder of their time in school until reaching sixth form.
Prior to 1980, the school was divided into four houses each with a different tie and badge colours: Faraday(green), Shaftsbury(red), Wellington(yellow) and Churchill(blue). Each pupil would remain in their respective house until they left school.
Ernest Bevin College was one of the first schools to receive Healthy Schools status.
Ernest Bevin College has a strong sporting tradition running back many years. Since the school's inception, it has managed to produce many professional athletes and sportsmen.
One driving influence was Joe Wilson (1920 - 2011) who became head of Physical Education at Hillcroft School when it opened in 1960 and remained in this role for 20 years. Unusually Joe's vision was to promote as many competitive sports as possible and he was instrumental in introducing lacrosse to the school in 1964.
Today, this sporting mentality is still a strong presence at the school – the opening of the new sports facilities in 2007 only served to strengthen this.
Sports the school currently participates in, or facilitates students’ participation in, include:
The current table tennis coach at Ernest Bevin is Mark Smith (former professional table tennis player). Mark has been a full-time coach at Ernest Bevin College since late 2005. During that time, Mark has created a strong, well-known team – three of his players have been or currently are ranked among the top 50 in the country (Cadet age).
Table tennis is now an integral part of the sporting culture at Ernest Bevin, and most students are aware of the players' activities. In recent months, the club has been expanded to include players from several local primary schools, opening up an entirely new stream of young players and clearing the path for Bevin to tap into local potential – many of these younger students will go on to attend Ernest Bevin, thus furthering their table tennis career.
It is a well-known fact that the current table tennis England Senior Men No. 2 ranked player, Darius Knight, grew up and learned his table tennis in Wandsworth.
The current long-serving volleyball coach at Ernest Bevin College is John Lowney – a well-recognised and respected name in the world of English volleyball; he is an ex-international, now coach of the junior London Squads, as well as coach amongst many other things at the newly formed Malory Eagles Volleyball Club (formerly White Eagles Volleyball Club and London Malory).
Over the years, Ernest Bevin has won many tournaments in volleyball – most notably so in recent years, the U16 Boys Nationals Title (2008). They were succeeded by Newcastle Staffs Volleyball Club in 2009. Today, the college is something of a volleyball 'hub' with London teams such as the former London Malory and White Eagles Volleyball Club and the Dulwich Tuskers using it as their home training venue. For a period of time in late 2008, Putney Volleyball Club also used Ernest Bevin as a training venue.
Many of Ernest Bevin's players have gone on to have involvement with the national squads. In recent years, nine Ernest Bevin players have been invited to attend England trials at various age groups. The Ernest Bevin volleyball set-up had strong links with both the former White Eagles Volleyball Club (now Malory Eagles Volleyball Club) and with the Wandsworth Bourough Volleyball Squads who compete both at the London Youth Games and at various age-groups in the junior Nationals tournament each year/season.