Frank Montgomery School

Frank Montgomery Secondary Modern School
Motto "Strive for the Right"
Type Secondary Modern
Headteacher Closed 2007
Location Bredlands Lane
Sturry
Kent
CT2 0HD
 England Coordinates: 51°18′42″N 1°08′54″E / 51.3116895°N 1.1483164999999644°E
Local authority Kent
DfE number 886/5453
DfE URN 118925 Tables
Students Closed 2007
Gender Mixed
Ages 11–18
Colours Bottle green     

Former mixed-gender secondary modern school in the village of Sturry near Canterbury in east Kent, for children aged 11 to 16, closed in 2007. The school was founded in 1935,[1] and was originally known as Sturry Secondary Modern School.[2] It changed its name to Frank Montgomery in 1985. The former school's site is now home to Spires Academy.

As a secondary modern school Frank Montgomery School was a non-selective school which tended to take in pupils who had failed to pass the controversial eleven plus exam set by Kent County Council to stream children to attend either selective grammar schools or non-selective secondary modern schools. According to Anthony Sampson, in his book Anatomy of Britain (1965), there were structural problems within the testing process that underpinned the eleven plus which meant it tended to result in secondary modern schools being overwhelmingly dominated by the children of poor and working class parents, while grammar schools were dominated by the children of wealthier middle class parents. To some extent Frank Montgomery School corresponded to this pattern by being dominated by poor and working class children, and by having both low academic expectations and poor examination results.[3]

Frank Montgomery School was placed in special measures in 1998 due to poor Ofsted inspection reports, although it left special measures five years later following intervention by the Local Education Authority and Ofsted. However in 2004 the BBC reported that the school was still bottom in the national school league tables for GCSE examination results in England and Wales, with just 4% of pupils on the school roll achieving any GCSEs at grade C or above.[4] Three years later, at the point of its closure, the school had risen from bottom place to thirteenth from bottom with 7% of pupils achieving the official requirement of five or more GCSE results at grade C or above, and 43% of pupils gaining at least one GCSE at grade C or above.[5]

The school returned to special measures in 2005 and remained there until its closure in 2007, at which point a new Academy School was formed on the same campus, taking in the former pupils of Frank Montgomery.

Frank Montgomery School was not only controversial due to its poor academic results. In 1997 its then headmaster, Rodney Freakes, was quoted as saying he was "impressed with the loyalty of the pupils to their teachers" following a riot by 200 pupils at the school in protest at the sacking of five of their teachers.[6]

Results for Pupils GCSE Examinations
Year % Gaining Any Grades A* to C
1997 13%
1998 21%
1999 9%
2000 14%
2001 10%
2002 19%
2003 7%
2004 4%
2005 26%
2006 43%

Source: Ofsted

Headmasters and Headmistresses

Notable former pupils

References

  1. ↑ 'Book charts the history of local schools', in The Kentish Gazette (UK newspaper), 16 September 2010
  2. ↑ BBC Doomsday Project, 1986 -
  3. ↑ Sampson, A. Anatomy of Britain Today, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1965, p.195
  4. ↑ 'School comes bottom in GCSE class' BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4170675.stm
  5. ↑ 'The worst GCSE-level results' BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6252315.stm
  6. ↑ 'Governors in crisis talks at riot school', in The Daily Mail (UK newspaper), 12 May 1997