Ashmole Academy

Ashmole Academy (formerly Ashmole School) is a secondary school with academy status in Southgate, England in the London Borough of Barnet. Under the direction of the headteacher Derrick Brown, around 1,460 pupils (331 in the Sixth form) are educated in ages 11–18.

The school is popular and over-subscribed. Pupils come from a wide range of minority ethnic heritages and a greater than usual number of pupils speak English as an additional language. In January 2007, Ofsted gave an overall rating of the school as Grade 1 Outstanding, the highest available assessment for a UK school.

History

The school, named after Elias Ashmole, was founded in 1958 as the successor of Russell Lane Secondary Modern Boy's School which had changed its name to Ashmole School in about 1949, had Southaw School merged into it in 1971, and became a foundation school in 1999. It achieved specialist status in Science in 2002, and added the second specialism, Music, in 2006. The school moved into a new building on the same site in September 2004 costing £14m. The existing administration block was refurbished and opened as the performing arts centre in June 2005. This was funded by the sale of 38 acres (150,000 m²) of school grounds to developers.