Garforth Academy

The school was opened as Garforth Comprehensive School in 1967.^[4][5] Barbara Castle, Member of Parliament for Blackburn, performed an official opening of the school on 11 October 1969.^[6]

By 1992, the school was known as Garforth Community College.^[7] In November 2010, the school became Garforth Academy under the Academies Act 2010,^[8] becoming a part of the Delta Academies Trust.^[9]

Since 2008, Garforth Academy has partnered with Mzuvele High School in KwaMashu, Durban. In 2011, students from Garforth Academy travelled to Mzuvele to take part in a musical collaboration with students from the school.^[10]

In 2010, Garforth Academy hosted the launch of Arts Live, a community arts partnership between the school, Brigshaw High School and ArtForms, the music and arts service provided by Education Leeds.^[11]

In the book The Modfather, David Lines describes his time at the school in the late 1970s and early 1980s in great detail. He described the school as looking like a cold hard slab of institutionalised concrete and, after leaving a leafy Nottinghamshire grammar school, described his shock on his first day of the pupils wearing 'menacing boots' and watching his classmates 'literally kicking seven shades out of each other'.^[12]

As a result of improvements in the previous decade, the headteacher, Paul Edwards, received a knighthood in the New Year Honours 2009 for services to local and national education.^[13]

• Gabby Adcock, badminton player^[14]
• Will Boyle, footballer^[15]
• Jake Charles, footballer^[16]
• James Denny, diver^{[citation needed]}
• Jessica Fletcher, badminton^{[citation needed]}
• Sian Gabbidon, businesswoman^[17]
• Mitchell Lund, footballer^{[citation needed]}
• Oli McBurnie, footballer^{[citation needed]}
• Lucy-Jo Hudson, actress^{[citation needed]}
• Gary Keedy, cricketer^[18]
• Chris Silverwood, cricketer^[19]
• Phil Sharpe, footballer & football manager^{[citation needed]}
• Jenny Wallwork, badminton player^[20]
• Andrew White, musician^[21]
• Ryan Hudson, Rugby League player^{[citation needed]}
• Tom Olbison, Rugby League player^{[citation needed]}
• Tommy Spurr, footballer^{[citation needed]}
• Liam Williams, comedian/writer^{[citation needed]}