Pelsall Comprehensive School was a secondary school located in Pelsall, an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall in the West Midlands of England.
It opened in September 1963 as Pelsall Secondary Modern (serving pupils aged 11 upwards), becoming a 11-18 comprehensive school in September 1972 under a local reorganisation of education by Aldridge Brownhills council, which would be absorbed into the Walsall borough two years later.
A new Science block was added in about 1976. The school closed in July 1994 after serving the community of Pelsall for 31 years.
18 months before its closure, the school suffered a tragedy when 13-year-old pupil Donna Cooper was killed by a speeding stolen car near the school during lunchtime on 6 January 1993. The driver of the car, 17-year-old Carl Sherwood from Goscote, was found guilty of manslaughter later that year and sentenced to seven years in youth custody. His accomplice, 26-year-old Blakenall Heath man Nigel Button, received a four-and-a-half year sentence (later reduced by a year on appeal) for two charges of aggravated vehicle taking. Three other occupants of the car received supervision orders.
The buildings are now home to Rushall JMI School, Education Walsall offices and a teacher training centre. The playing fields have remained intact.
Famous quotes containing the word school:
“Nevertheless, no school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children’s best interests. Parents have every right to understand what is happening to their children at school, and teachers have the responsibility to share that information without prejudicial judgment.... Such communication, which can only be in a child’s interest, is not possible without mutual trust between parent and teacher.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)