Parkside Community College

"For the school in Devonport with the same name, see Devonport, Devon."Infobox UK school
name = Parkside Community College


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latitude = 52.20441
longitude = 0.12851
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established = 1913
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closed =
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religion =
president =
head_label = Headteacher
head = Mr Andrew Hutchinson
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specialist = Language College
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street = Parkside
city = Cambridge
county = Cambridgeshire
country = England
postcode = CB1 1EH
LEA = Cambridgeshire
ofsted = 110864
staff =
enrollment = 600
gender = Coeducational
lower_age = 11
upper_age = 16
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publication =
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website = http://www.parkside.cambs.sch.uk/
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Parkside Community College is a state secondary school with 600 places for children aged 11 - 16, situated in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. The college has two specialties as an Arts College and Language College. The College is situated in the centre of the city, a road away from Parker's Piece. It is now a member of the Parkside Federation along with Coleridge Community College. Parkside was the first school to be designated a specialist media arts college in 1997, under the UK government's specialist schools programme.

The long history of the school is related in "An Epoch-Making School", by former Deputy Principal Rosemary Gardiner (1983), which presents the transformations of the school from its origin as the Higher Grade Schools in Melbourne Place (1913), through its successive incarnations as the Central School for Boys and Girls and the Girls’ Grammar School, to its status as a co-educational comprehensive in 1974.

Its work as a specialist media arts college has been documented in a number of research studies by staff at the school. These include studies of an extensive primary school animation project (eg Burn and Parker, 2001), run in conjunction with the Cambridge Film Consortium, a group composed of Anglia Ruskin University, City Screen (an Arts cinema chain), the Cambridge Film Festival, and Parkside itself.

The most recent and comprehensive account of the school’s media work, giving examples of work in digital video, computer games, animation, and television drama, as well as work across the curriculum, is provided in Burn and Durran’s "Media Literacy in Schools" (2007).

The school is now federated with Coleridge Community College under Principal Andrew Hutchinson, and has developed a second specialism in Modern Foreign Languages.

Despite being a foundation school, Parkside has almost identical admission arrangements to the community schools within Cambridge. Any parent can apply for a place, with priority going to children who are in public care, then to those living in the designated catchment area, then to those with older siblings at the school and finally to those living nearest the school. Full details of the oversubscription criteria and the application process can be obtained from the College or from Cambridgeshire County Council's Admissions Team.

References

Burn A & Parker D (2001), ‘Making your Mark: Digital Inscription, Animation, and a New Visual Semiotic’, "Education, Communication & Information", Vol. 1, No. 2, pp 155-179 (and online at http://www.open.ac.uk/eci/burn/featset.html)

Burn, A and Durran, J (2007) "Media Literacy in Schools: practice, production and progression". London: Paul Chapman

Gardiner, R (1983) "An Epoch-Making School", Parkside Community College: Cambridge

External links

* [http://www.parksidefederation.org.uk The Parkside Federation Official Website]
* [http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/admissions Cambridgeshire County Council Admissions Website]
* [http://www.parksidefederation.org.uk/parkside_media/Publications.htm Publications on Parkside's extensive Media programme]