Two academies

From separate girls' and boys' elementary schools admitting
c300 pupils in 1938, the mixed establishment of over twelve
hundred has proposed its next step.

Last year it was announced that the presently-named Francis Bacon School was about to re-style itself.  In the current vogue for such matters it was about to become an academy.  Presumably this has more to do with top level organisation and funding than the nuts and bolts of classroom curriculum.  From September and its change of name – the Samuel Ryder Academy – it will also become an 'all-through' school, which, I assume will solve the issue of primary places for children growing up at Highfield.  An interesting concept this, because all-through schools were the norm from the 1870s onwards,  through the board schools era and local authority elementary structure; in St Albans they only disappeared in the 1930s.

Turning to a secondary school which began as  senior elementary schools, it has been announced that Beaumont is applying for academy status, and hopes this will run from September 2012.  Given that Beaumont is a highly successful secondary school, specialising in languages, maths and computing, there must be key financial and independence reasons for this move.  No decisions have yet been made, but it is in the public domain, there having been an item in the Herts Advertiser last week.

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