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The HISTORY of REDDITCH New Town

Pyramid System

of children from Church Hill and other parts of the town. However, the pyramid system
did allow for the smooth transition of children from one school to another and for Head
teachers and teachers to work more closely with their colleagues in the pyramid to achieve
higher educational attainment.
At the same time that Redditch was becoming a New Town the government was
encouraging schools to consider the dual use of their facilities by outside bodies and the
community. With the building of three new High Schools (the Leys, Arrow Vale and St
Augustines) this seemed an ideal opportunity to plan to maximise the use of school
facilities. The first school to plan for dual use was the Leys.

where emphasis was placed on additional sporting facilities. Eventually, a large sports
hall was built as well as changing facilities for outside and indoor purposes, squash courts
and a family sized swimming pool. A cafeteria was also created and later a Youth Centre.
The whole process took six years to complete.

The process was repeated at Arrow Vale High School and at a later stage in a modified
scheme at St Augustine’s Roman Catholic High School (opened in 1974). The success of
dual use depended on the schools working in harmony with funding agencies such as the
local authorities and the payment of good salaries to those who looked after the facilities.
The major advantage of these community facilities was value for money with the
additional expenditure being covered by the income generated. Redditch was in the
vanguard of this development with other areas of the country lagging behind.

School Expansion in the 1980s

Education services had expanded rapidly in the 1970’s to deal with the fast-rising school
population. During the 1980’s the school population continued to grow and there was
concern about the inability of some High Schools to accommodate all those children from
feeder Middle schools. This could only be managed by constant manoeuvring of pupils
into those High Schools that had capacity and by gradually increasing capacity at the
more popular High Schools. Even then, it would not be possible to meet the demands

Ridgeway Middle School,
Astwood Bank.

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