Buile Hill Academy is a coeducational secondary school in Pendleton, Salford, England,^[1] opposite Buile Hill Park. It is a public Secondary School.^[2]

History

The school buildings are over 100 years old in some parts, with the school sharing a playing field with Salford City College in Pendleton, across the field to the north. The site was occupied by the former Salford Grammar School until 1973, when it was closed and its sixth form, along with that of Pendleton High School for Girls, was transferred to Pendleton College, which is nearby. The grammar school buildings had opened in 1956.^[3] In 1973 a new 11 to 16 comprehensive school called Buile Hill High School was opened on part of the former grammar school site.

The school received an Artsmark Gold Award in May 2006 and was renamed Buile Hill Visual Arts College. It is one of the few schools in the Salford area with a fully working theatre and performance space.

The school's headteacher left the school in the summer of 2006 and was replaced by a 'super head'. The new headteacher, Mr. P. Fitzpatrick, was paid a larger-than-usual salary of £100,000 per year, and was contracted for two years to improve the school's results and ready the school for the move into its new buildings in 2008. However, Fitzpatrick failed to achieve the results that the council had been looking for, and in 2007 he was removed by mutual agreement after just two terms.^[4] In 2007 the school's results on the standard measure (% of pupils reaching 5 GCSEs at grades A*-C) jumped from 26% to 52%.^[5]

The school's contextual value added now stands at 999; the national average is 1,000.

The school underwent an OFSTED inspection in October 2007 which described it as satisfactory overall with elements of good.^[6]

The school was rebuilt on the adjacent field and completed in 2008. The new buildings were funded through the Private Finance Initiative.

In March 2014, Edward Beetham, a former head of year and humanities teacher at the school, pleaded guilty to indecency with an 11-year-old pupil in the early 1990s. He was spared jail, but was subjected to a two-year community order, with a requirement to attend a sex offenders' programme. His defence barrister, Stuart Duke, told Manchester Crown Court: "He has lost his good character. He has gone from being a genteel, retired schoolteacher playing petanque to somebody who will be monitored by the authorities – it has been absolutely devastating for this to come back and haunt him."^[7] When sentencing, Judge Patrick Field QC, told Beetham: "You developed and encouraged a relationship with (the victim) – this appears to me, at least in part, grooming behaviour, enabling you to lure him into your bedroom where you invited an undoubtedly bewildered child to beat you for your own sexual gratification."

Previously a community school administered by Salford City Council, in August 2016 Buile Hill Visual Arts College converted to academy status and was renamed Buile Hill Academy. The school is now sponsored by Consilium Academies, but is soon to be taken over by NET (Northern Education Trust)

Notable former pupils

• Wes Butters – TV and radio presenter.
• Michael Appleton – former player of Manchester United, Preston North End, West Bromwich Albion and current First Team Coach at Oxford United.
• Mark Hendrick – Labour politician

References

External links

• Buile Hill Academy official website
• Old Salfordians Association
• EduBase
• History of Salford Grammar/Technical High School (pdf, at pages 4–5)