Oldfield School

History

Oldfield School was founded in 1892 to serve the City of Bath; in 1959 the school moved from the city centre to agricultural land on the western outskirts of the city, overlooking the River Avon valley, and now attracts pupils from a much wider area including the eastern outskirts of Bristol.

The main school building is from the late 1950s, but Penn House dates from the mid-1800s predating the school, and is largely used as sixth form accommodation and by the English department. In the 1960s Penn House was a separate special school, but was later absorbed into Oldfield School. Recent buildings include a drama studio, dance studio, sports hall, and a new teaching block for Mathematics and Humanities. Some expansion classroom blocks date from the 1970s and 1980s. The school has on-site playing fields.

In the 1990s and 2000s the school took an early opportunity to gain more independence from local authority control by becoming a grant-maintained school and then a foundation school.

In 2010 the school applied for academy status using the Academies Act in order to remove itself from local authority control and avoid becoming co-educational, becoming an Academy in February 2011. Ultimately, under pressure from Bath and North East Somerset Council which offered to provide £1.85 million for conversion works, the school decided to become co-educational from 2012.

Recent PE teacher Helen Glover won the gold medal for the women's coxless pairs at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. She took up rowing in 2008 whilst teaching at the school and trained at the Minerva Bath Rowing Club nearby. In November 2012 she returned to the school to open the £1.85 million sports centre.

Academics

The school is a National College for School Leadership National Support School and the former Headteacher is a National Leader of Education.

Uniform

The Oldfield School uniform consists of a navy blue jacket with a white logo of a swan. A tie and grey jumper should be worn. A white shirt must be worn under the jumper. Students in years 7, 8 and 9 must wear navy blue trousers or skirt. Shoes must be comfortable, have little or no heel and be blue, black or brown.

Sixth form

The school has a sixth form of 68 students as of January 2013.

2013 breakdown in management and governance

In December 2013 Ofsted made a surprise inspection to investigate concerns over child safeguarding, following some complaints. Ofsted concluded that safeguarding procedures met requirements, but the school governors had an inadequate understanding of their statutory responsibilities, were overly reliant on information provided by the headteacher, and an external review of governance should be undertaken. A fuller Ofsted report has not been published, despite a petition of over 1,000 signatures. The Bath Chronicle, which had seen a copy of the fuller report, reported that it "would have regraded the school rated as outstanding in 2012, and which contains more serious criticisms", but was limited in what it could report for legal reasons.

In March 2014, in the week a Department for Education review team visited the school, Stuart Weatherall was appointed Chair of Governors, with the previous Chair becoming Vice-chair of Governors. The NASUWT teachers' union called for the resignation of the headteacher following the leaking of the unpublished 2013 Ofsted report which accused the headteacher of "managing staff through a culture of fear, intimidation and bullying".

On 30 April 2014 the headteacher resigned. On the same day it was announced that a pre-warning notice letter had been issued by the Secretary of State for Education to the governors, requiring major improvements after a serious breakdown in the way the academy had been managed and governed. The remedial actions recommended by the Education Funding Agency include the establishment of an Interim Academy Board, to take over the powers and functions of the governors for a period of time. In July 2015 the Interim Academy Board was dissolved, and a normal governance regime resumed.