The Wellington Academy

The Wellington Academy, founded in 2009, is Wiltshire's first academy. Located in Ludgershall, the academy is an 11-19 non-selective state-funded school, sponsored by Wellington College, an independent school in Berkshire.^[1][2][3]

The President of the Academy is HRH Duke of York, who performed the official opening of the new campus in November 2011.^[4] The first Principal of the Academy was Andy Schofield who oversaw the set up of the Academy, doubled its size to a school of over 1,000 and established its 6th Form. The Academy is now being run by Executive Principal, Dr Mike Milner, and Senior Vice Principal, Ms Abrilli Phillip. Academy students met HM The Queen again at Salisbury Cathedral during the 2012 Jubilee Celebrations.

Design

The Wellington Academy was designed by London-based architects BDP,^[5] built by Kier ^[6][7][8] and was shortlisted in the best academy category for the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Awards in 2009.^[9][10]

Characteristics

The campus houses a community sports, fitness centre and bowling green, hair salon, cadet centre with indoor shooting range, twin boarding houses for 100 students, and Castledown Radio media centre. Located near to Tidworth Garrison on Salisbury Plain, almost half of the school's students are from service families.^[11][12] The Academy has a skills centre in the adjacent Castledown Business Park.^[13]

Achievements

The Wellington Academy's first set of results in 2010 established the school as one of Wiltshire's highest performing.^[14][15] The Academy was visited by Ofsted in December 2010 and was deemed to have made outstanding progress since opening.^[16]

Summer of 2015 saw the Academy achieve its best exam results ever for both GCSE and GCE.

Sponsored academy

Previously Castledown School before reopening as an academy, The Wellington Academy is the first academy in the country to take its name from an independent school, Wellington College, founded as a national monument to the Duke of Wellington ^[17] by Queen Victoria in 1859.^[18] Other independent schools were initially slow to do something similar, despite the high profile campaign led by Wellington College's former Master Anthony Seldon, though the situation has now begun to change, with around 28 independent schools now helping to run Academies, including Sevenoaks School, Dulwich College, Malvern College, Marlborough College, Oundle School, Uppingham School, and Winchester College, with strong encouragement from Government for even greater involvement.^{[19][20][21][22][23][24]}

References

External links

• Academy website
• Castledown Radio website