The Lakes School

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The Lakes School
View North West from Orrest Head - geograph.org.uk - 1398781.jpg
The Lakes School, centre, from Orrest Head
Location
The Lakes School
Troutbeck Bridge

Windermere
,
Cumbria
,
LA23 1HW

England
Coordinates 54°23′33″N2°55′21″W / 54.39242°N 2.92239°W / 54.39242; -2.92239
Information
Type Community school
Established1965 (1965)
Local authority Westmorland and Furness
Department for Education URN 112379 Tables
Ofsted Reports
Head TeacherSharon Rainey
Gender Coeducational
Age11to 18
Enrolment462 as of December 2022
Website http://thelakesschool.com

The Lakes School is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form located in Troutbeck Bridge, Windermere, in the English county of Cumbria. [1]

Contents

It is a comprehensive community school administered by Westmorland and Furness Council. [2] Its catchment area includes: Grasmere, Langdale Valley, Ambleside, Troutbeck, Windermere, Bowness on Windermere and Staveley. The school also offers evening adult education classes to the local community. [3]

History

The Lakes School is one of the first purpose built comprehensive schools and was opened by Tony Crosland MP, Secretary of State for Education, on 8 October 1965 the same year he issued Circular 10/65 promoting comprehensive education.

The school was first thought of in 1936 and brought together three existing schools, Windermere Grammar for boys, Kelswick, Ambleside, coeducational and Old College, Windermere, for girls. Windermere Grammar School is in the Guinness Book of Records as the first ever comprehensive school formed in 1945 after the Education Act 1944. [4]

The school stands on the site of where Calgarth Estate once stood, the wartime housing scheme built to house workers and families brought to the Lake District to work at the nearby Short Sunderland Flying Boat factory that stood on the shores of Windermere during WW2.

Significantly, it was at Calgarth Estate that 300 young Holocaust Survivors stayed in 1945 after the horrors of the Holocaust. The estate was depicted in the BBC/Warner Bros film drama The Windermere Children first broadcast in 2020. The drama won the First Prize for Best Television Drama of 2020 in the Berlin Prix Europa Awards.

Sir Ben Helfgott and the young Jewish children are Honorary Alumni at Lakes School though the school was opened twenty years after they had departed to begin new lives elsewhere.

Notable alumni

References

  1. ↑ "Home". thelakesschool.com.
  2. ↑ "The Lakes School - GOV.UK". Get-information-schools.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
  3. ↑ "Adult Education - The Lakes School". thelakesschool.com. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  4. ↑ "School History - The Lakes School". thelakesschool.com. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
  5. ↑ "In Memory of Chris". LIGHT from a dead star. Retrieved 28 October 2017.
  6. ↑ "michael cumming". Archived from the original on 23 December 2014.
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