Kingswood secondary school to change its name

From September Kingswood's Kingsfield School will be changing its name - to the King's Oak Academy.

Kingsfield is set to become the fifth member of the Cabot Learning Foundation in the autumn. It will be a fresh start for the school which has around 1,000 pupils and was given a notice to improve by Ofsted inspectors last year.

By January this year the school was said to be making satisfactory progress.

The school was founded in 1921 as Kingswood Grammar School and was renamed Kingsfield when it became a comprehensive school in 1970.

New headteacher Ian Frost, who joined last term, said: "We asked all of our students, parents, staff and governors to choose which name we would like for our Academy as it opens in September.

 "We received a great deal of feedback, including lots of responses from parents, either through reply slips or on email, and we have chosen the most popular choice chosen by students, parents, staff and governors. The new name will be King's Oak Academy." I

Famous old boys at the school include scientist Professor Colin Pillinger, who was there in the 1950s. He is best known as the leader of the Beagle 2 project, the attempt to land a British-built spacecraft on Mars in 2003, to search for evidence of life on the Red Planet.

Other old boys include Sir Bernard Lovell, the founder of Jodrell Bank Experimental Station, who later gave his name to the secondary school in Oldland Common, and the current Premier League chief Richard Scudamore, a former head boy who left in 1977,

Meanwhile the school has been helping Year 11 pupils do the best they can in their GCSEs by running special Rise to Shine sessions - including a free breakfast.

A school spokesman said: "Sessions run for 20 minutes before entry into the examination hall. The aim is to prepare students for their exam by ensuring they have the energy to last the course and that they are calm, have a clear head and are focused on entry.

"This includes free tea and toast for morning exams from our canteen. "