The Dukeries Academy
The Dukeries Academy is a secondary school, community college and leisure centre situated in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire. It offers education for students aged 11–19 and is a specialist technology college. Adult education and Whitewater also offer a range of level 2 and 3 courses, including GCSEs and BTECs.
Opened in September 1964 as, with Kirkby in Ashfiled Comprehensive School, the first Nottinghamshire County Comprehensives - Fairham Comprehensive School in Nottingham had preceded them, then the School immediately proved to be a high quality "Community Provision" at a time when the village and neighbouring Edwinstowe and Bilsthorpe - who provided young people as pupils at the school - were thriving mining communities. The School/College/Academy therefore celebrates its 49th anniversary in 2014.
The Dukeries has been visited by Ed Balls, Sebastian Coe and Gordon Brown. Balls described it as "a school of the 21st century". The school received a "satisfactory" grade after an OFSTED inspection.
The school became an academy on 1 January 2013, and was renamed The Dukeries Academy.
The Dukeries offers, a gym, a theatre, horse riding, old peoples centre, on-site counselling, a construction block, an astro-turf pitch, a youth club and a fire service training centre.
In 2009, The Dukeries was included in controversial plans to cut funding. Nottinghamshire County Council proposed to cut £380,000 of the schools budget to save money. There is a current campaign underway to stop these cuts from happening.
