Coleridge Community College
| Type | Academy |
|---|---|
| Location |
Parkside Cambridge Cambridgeshire England Coordinates: 52°11′38″N 0°09′11″E / 52.194°N 0.153°E |
| Local authority | Cambridgeshire |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Ages | 11–16 |
| Website | Parkside Federation |
Coleridge Community College is a secondary academy school with 600 places for children aged 11–16, situated on Radegund Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. The school is now a member of the Parkside Federation[1] along with Parkside Community College. Previously, it had been placed on special measures, and was due to be closed. However, its most recent Ofsted report[2] rated it overall as "broadly average".
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, coinciding with Sir Francis Chichester's single-handed circumnavigation of the globe in his yacht "Gipsy Moth IV". Teachers of note at the time (for their kindness or strictness) were Mr (Colonel) Harris (English Language), Mrs Mansfield (French), Mr Webster (Geography), Mr Dangerfield (Metalwork), Mr Overhill (PE), Mr Lucas (History) and the boys' school Head Master was Mr Kingdom.
In 1984 the school's first Oxbridge place was won by John Winney (PPE: Pembroke, Oxford), who gained a 2:2, five terms after expulsion from College. (NB In 1988 Mr Winney was still entitled to sit Finals despite 5 terms of no formal tuition. Statutes have been changed and in 2013 expulsion from College disqualifies a student from sitting University exams.)
Coleridge has almost identical admission arrangements to other schools within Cambridgeshire. Any parent can apply for a place, with priority going to children who are in public care, then to those living in the designated catchment area, then to those with older siblings at the school and finally to those living nearest the school.