Village College

The village college is an institution specific to Cambridgeshire, England (including, since 1998, the Peterborough unitary authority area). It caters for the education of 11 to 16 year olds during the day, and provides educational and leisure facilities to adults out of school hours.

Village colleges were the brainchild of Henry Morris, the then Chief Education Officer for Cambridgeshire, who had a vision of a school that would serve the whole community, stem migration from the countryside to the towns, and provide a decent education to pupils who had previously only been served by the upper years of Elementary schools.

Between the implementation of the Education Act 1944 and Cambridgeshire's adoption of the Comprehensive school system in 1974, village colleges were effectively reduced to secondary modern schools; since 1974 village colleges have returned to their original mission as schools for the whole community. Indeed, many argue that the village college model had a large influence on the design of the Comprehensive system.

Under Morris' influence, many of the colleges have had distinguished architects, notably the one at Impington designed by Walter Gropius and Maxwell Fry.

There are village colleges throughout Cambridgeshire, including Bassingbourn, Bottisham, Burwell, Comberton, Cottenham, Gamlingay, Impington, Linton, Melbourn, Sawston, Soham, Swavesey and Witchford.

Sawston Village College was the first village college to open, in 1930, followed by Bottisham Village College in 1937.

Gamlingay Village College does not cater for the 11-16 age range; instead it is a middle school catering for the education of students aged 9–13, students then transfer to Stratton Upper School in Bedfordshire at the age of 13.

Burwell Village College is in fact a Primary School.

Famous quotes containing the words village and/or college:

    Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
    And news much older than their ale went round.
    Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)

    ... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal “the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry].” He said he didn’t know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate’s coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.
    Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)