Thomas Deacon Academy

Thomas Deacon Academy

The Thomas Deacon Academy is an academy located in Peterborough, England. Built by contractors Laing O'Rourke to a design by Foster and Partners and Buro Happold, the academy's construction began in June 2005, and it opened to students in September 2007. The academy houses approximately 2,200 students ranging from ages 11–19 and was built on the site of Deacon's School in Queen's Gardens, Dogsthorpe. In the summer of 2016, it partnered up with The Voyager Academy eventually forming the Thomas Deacon Academy Education Trust.

The total cost of the Thomas Deacon Academy is estimated at £46.4 million. The Peterborough Evening Telegraph has reported that this had risen to £50 million. Contributors to the academy include Peterborough City Council, Perkins Engines and Deacon's School Trust, a charity created by the will of Thomas Deacon in 1721.

The teaching and student bodies combined the students and staff of three local schools: Deacon's School, John Mansfield School and Hereward Community College, all of which closed in July 2007. Thus allowing The academy to open in September of the same year. The academy initially offered the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme to its sixth form students as an alternative to A-Levels, but abandoned it in 2009 due to the IB being not cost-effective for the small number of students who choose to do it.

The academy uses a house system, with six areas of focus - Atherstone, Castle, Highfield, Milton, Sandown and Trinity. The house system is intended to ensure that the school does not lose sight of individual students. A college for a certain focal area had classrooms specialised for the particular subjects within the educational focus, so Science college had all of the science laboratories; and had colours associated with them. Maths had blue, Science had purple, Communications had green, Humanities had yellow, Arts had orange and Technology had red. The names of the colleges were changed due to recurring issues with parents and carers of new pupils assuming that a student in a particular college, for example Arts, would be taught a majority of subject in that focal area.

An average day at the Academy starts at 8.45am and finishes at 2.45pm, but students may also attend after-school activities and additional lessons. The extra lessons can extend for a maximum of 2 hours after the end of the school day and are only scheduled for pupils in Key Stages 4 and 5. The school initially attracted controversy because it lacked a playground and no outside breaks were planned.

Junior College

The Junior College opened in September 2014. Functioning as a junior school, it accepts students between the ages of 7 to 11, within four separate, age grouped, 'school years' in accordance with the standard within the U.K. system, currently Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6, or the entirety of Key Stage 2. This cost of this new building is estimated to be around £7.2 million. The current head teacher of this school is Simon Martin.