Chessington School
Chessington School
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Chessington School

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Chessington School

Chessington School (Chessington Community College until September 2018) is a co-educational secondary school with a sports centre, in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, Greater London. The current building was opened in September 2009.

In 1939, the Garrison Lane site of Chessington School was opened as RAF Chessington and was used as a barrage balloon centre in the defence of London in World War II. After a brief period of operation as a US Air Force base, most of the land was sold off for housing; however some of the land was still under military ownership as recently as the mid 1990s.

The first secondary school in the Chessington area was Moor Lane secondary mixed school, opened in 1936. After World War II, with large areas of Chessington scheduled for building, a new secondary school was required. It was decided to retain Moor Lane as a secondary girls' school, and establish a new boys' school. In September 1953, Fleetwood County Secondary boys' school was opened in Garrison Lane as a three-form entry school with a roll of 324 boys.

As house building in the area progressed, boys of all ages were continually being admitted to Fleetwood, increasing pressure on the school organisation, and in some cases resulting in boys of different age groups being taught in the same classes. The school soon became overcrowded, accentuated by some classes with over 40 boys housed in classrooms intended for 30. This situation was relieved in 1958 by the addition of two classrooms and a library. In time, new house building slowed and the annual intakes reduced to the normal three-form entry and forms were reduced in size, with no form more than 35, most being just below 30.

A Ministry of Education inspection in July 1962 concluded that Fleetwood was a good school which made a valuable contribution to its local community. Under the Surrey Development Plan for Secondary Education, girls were admitted to the renamed Fleetwood County Secondary School, with the first girls admitted in September 1962 when 38 girls joined the existing 383 boys. In the following years, numbers began to rise as more girls joined the school.

The 1980s saw falling rolls, and Kingston Local Education Authority considered closing the school. This angered many of the parents and residents in the Chessington and Hook areas who felt that local amenities were being taken away from the south of the borough. Following local debate, Kingston decided to keep the secondary school in the south of the borough, but given the complaints about lack of recreational facilities decided that a new educational establishment was needed which would also serve the community needs of Chessington and Hook.

In September 1989, Chessington Community College was established, replacing Fleetwood School on the Garrison Lane site, with Mr. J. P. Hayes as its first headteacher.

In 1992, the College opened a £2 million sports centre which was built not only to provide indoor sporting facilities for the pupils of Chessington Community College, but also to serve the sporting needs of the local community in the evenings and at weekends.

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