The school was built in two phases, a lower building in 1957 and was followed by a much larger 'Main Building' which was completed in 1961. The buildings on the school remained relatively unchanged for 40 years until a Music Building and a Sixth Form and Food Technology building were added to the previous 'lower yard' and bike shed area in 2002. During the construction of the school, the playing field area needed to be levelled out. This proved difficult due to the nature of the ground, and it was decided by Liverpool Education committee that the most cost-effective method of leveling out the playing field area was controlled tipping. This led to a large difference in ground height of the field compared to the school buildings, with pupils required to walk up a set of steps equivalent to 2 storeys. This decision also meant that the land could not be built on in the future. This eventually led to the school's need to move locations under the Building Schools for the future government scheme as the only available ground on the Grange Lane site was the ground the current school footprint was held on, and a new school was required before the old one could be demolished. Gateacre Community Comprehensive School was the first comprehensive school to open in Liverpool. It was also the first of a number of Liverpool schools to house George Whitfield's design for main building. It is also the last remaining example of Whitfield's 'Main building'. Demolition is due to commence in January 2011 and £300,000 has been set aside for this task. In an attempt to prevent the building from being damaged by vandals in the meantime, the building is being occupied by 'Guardians' from the company Adhoc, who pay a basic amount of money to live in basic conditions. The scheme has been running for 3 months and has thus far proved extremely successful. The 20 acre Grange Lane school consisted of 3 gyms, 2 kitchens, 3 assembly halls, 5 yards, a swimming pool, and 11 tennis courts In 2005 Gateacre received joint in Arts & Humanities. The Specialist school status as an Arts College allowed the school extra funding for arts related utilities and projects. The three main areas of arts being performing, visual and media. The other specialism was as a Humanities College the lead subjects being English and Religious Studies. At the beginning of the 2015/2016 school year, on 3 and 4 September 2015, Gateacre School introduced a new form system based upon the "Vertical Tutoring" System. The school based its houses on an acronym for the word aspire by sorting their students into 6 main houses which are, Angelou, Socrates, Pankhurst, Ibsen, Rathbone and Einstein. The school believed that this change would be positive for students however the vertical tutoring system is usually disliked by students due to the segregation between year groups and groups of friends. The school also claims on its website that "There is evidence that mixed age tutor groups prevent bullying because there is a sense of belonging across ages", despite the fact that there is no independently peer reviewed research to support the claims that vertical tutoring reduces bullying and improves school cohesion. During the school year ending August 2014 Gateacre School achieved 29% 5 A-C GCSEs including English and maths putting it in the lowest 20% of schools in the country with similar characteristics. In August 2015 Gateacre School achieved 32%5 GCSEs A-C including English and maths.
New building
In 2011 the school relocated from Gateacre to the neighbouring area of Belle Vale. The new building would cost over £35 million and plans have been made to include high tech features such as solar panels, wind turbines and a cyber cafe. The new building can now be easily identified opposite Belle Vale Shopping Centre. The official school website has listed what the building will include:
Complete wi-fi coverage over the entire building for anytime, anywhere computer access.
Flexible classrooms which can be configured into different areas to enable individual tuition, small group-work, whole class activities and mass presentations.
