Denefield School

History

The school was founded in 1976 and was originally called Long Lane Comprehensive School after its location. This name was later changed to avoid confusion with a primary school of the same name on the same road.

When founded, the school had an enrolment of 180 students in Year 7 which was greatly increased the following year when all the students from Cintra Secondary Modern School joined after that school closed.

In 1989 the school was divided into 3 houses named after local rivers, Thames, Kennet and Loddon. At around the same time a school logo was created depicting an oak tree with three rivers, representing the houses, flowing from the base of the trunk. The large oak tree which was the inspiration for the logo still exists, and can be seen in the playing fields behind the school buildings. The logo also reflected the origin of the name Denefield, which has as its stem the Old English 'Dene', meaning a wooded river valley. At this time also the existing motto of 'we care' was modified to 'caring, learning, achieving'.

The Sixth form took its first students in 1981. Over the years Denefield has continued to grow and by 1992 when it became a grant-maintained school it had over 1,000 students on roll. It was awarded a specialism as a Technology College in 1994.

The 3 rivers house system was abolished in 1994 when a new system focused on academic years was introduced. Instead of being grouped into 3 houses students were grouped into 6 letters taken from the first 6 letter of the Reading town’s name. Year 7 students for example were therefore grouped into 7R, 7E, 7A, 7D, 7I & 7N and this replicated in each year up to year 11. The Sixth Form's Year 12 and 13 only had an R, E & A groups due to the reduced student numbers. Despite there no longer being an official link between the years as under the old house system, students would often cheer fellow letter group students from other years at annual sports days.

In 1999, Denefield became a foundation school and in January 2012, Denefield became an academy school. At this time a new and the current house system was introduced along with a new school uniform, school logo and motto. The school has been over subscribed since September 2014.

Building

The original school building was erected in 1976 as temporary accommodation, however, the old building still stands and much of the school has been rebuilt and refurbished. The school has state of the art facilities for Science, Technology, Art and Music and has large grounds which are used for sporting activities. The school was graded 'good' in its last Ofsted inspection in June 2014.

Houses

Denefield has had two house systems since it was opened in 1976. The current 4 house system was introduced as part of the series of changes brought in after the school was found to be ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted inspectors. The houses are named Norcot, Langley, Sulham and Kentwood which are named after 4 local hills in the local area.

Headteacher

The current headteacher is Miss Lucy Dawe, she took over in September 2015. She took over from Mr Glyn Whiteford who, after taking the school into and out of special measures, left the school on August 31, 2015. Miss Dawe was previously deputy head.