Established 1913 Headteacher Andrew Hutchinson OBE DfE URN 136636 Tables Number of students 666 Gender Mixed-sex education | Chair Dr Mark Carrington Phone +44 1223 712600 Founded 1913 | |
Location ParksideCambridgeCambridgeshireCB1 1EHEngland Similar Learn & Train, Chesterton Community College, Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge Regional College, Parkside Sixth Profiles | ||
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Parkside Community College is a secondary academy school with 600 places for children aged 11–16, situated in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. It is part of the Parkside Federation, along with Coleridge Community College.
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Admissions
The college has two specialisms in arts and languages. The College is situated in the centre of the city, north of Parker's Piece. It is now a member of the Parkside Federation along with Coleridge Community College under principal Andrew Hutchinson. Parkside was the first school to be designated a specialist media arts college in 1997, under the UK government's specialist schools programme. It has developed a second specialism in Modern Foreign Languages. Although called a 'community college', it is neither a community school nor a college but had foundation status since 2003 and then became an academy.
It is situated east of the A603 and next to the main Cambridge Parkside police station and the National Express coach stops. It is east of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
History
The school was first opened as a higher grade school in Melbourne Place in 1913, providing places for about 820 boys and girls; fees between 6d and 9d a week were charged. Following the Education Act 1918, it became a central school.
From 1960 to 1974 it was the Cambridge Grammar School for Girls, after which it became the co-educational comprehensive Parkside Community College.
It was the first school in the UK to be designated a Media Arts College under the UK government's specialist schools programme, in 1997.
It was granted Foundation status in 2003, and Academy status in 2011.
The history of the school is related in An Epoch-Making School, by former Deputy Principal Rosemary Gardiner (1983).
Research work
Its work as a specialist media arts college has been documented in a number of research studies by staff at the school. These include studies of an extensive primary school animation project (e.g. Burn and Parker, 2001), run in conjunction with the Cambridge Film Consortium, a group composed of Anglia Ruskin University, City Screen (an Arts cinema chain), the Cambridge Film Festival, and Parkside itself.
The most recent and comprehensive account of the school’s media work, giving examples of work in digital video, computer games, animation, and television drama, as well as work across the curriculum, is provided in Andrew Burn and James Durran’s Media Literacy in Schools (2007).
On 1 December 2008, the Nova 9 helium balloon took two space-suited teddies close to the edge of space from the grounds of Churchill College, Cambridge. The space suits were designed by 11-13 year olds at the school. The journey took just over two hours. The teddies descended back to Earth and landed near Ipswich, being located by GPS equipment.
Academic performance
It gets well above average results at GCSE - the best for state schools in Cambridge. With around 60 state schools nationwide, the school plans to offer the IGCSE especially in science subjects, largely prompted by the scientists among its pupils' parents.
Notable alumni
The author Nick Hornby was an English teacher at the school between 1982 and 1984.