Whitworth Park School


Whitworth Park Academy is a coeducational secondary school, which used to have sixth form located in Spennymoor, County Durham, England. The school was formerly known as Spennymoor Comprehensive up until 2012, when it merged with Tudhoe Grange School.
The school moved into new buildings in 2013 that were officially opened by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent. The existing buildings remained in use but were not of the same standard of the new build. While the new building were in construction, portable classrooms were put into use on the field where R.E, Maths and Languages were taught to the pupils. £11 million was spent revitalising the school. A large wall was built in 2014, where the schools name and logo are to this day. The main use of this wall is to cover the old building as it doesn't fit in with the rest of the new build. Up until early 2018 this wall was yellow, however the colour was later changed to white, and the letters 'and Sixth Form College' removed and replaced with "Academy". This change marked the beginning of what was hoped to be a road to recovery to the high standards the school once set the bar for as Spennymoor Comprehensive before becoming Whitworth Park.
Whitworth Park School offers GCSEs, BTECs and Cambridge Nationals as programmes of study for pupils.
Students in the sixth form used to have the option to study from a range of A-levels and further vocational courses. In August 2017, the Sixth Form College closed 2 days before the start of the new school year. The existing sixth form students were allowed to finish their respective courses, however those intending to go there were not allowed to start and had to find other options.
In December 2016, the school was rated 'Inadequate' by Ofsted who identified poor achievement and lack of leadership in their report. Since then, a new leadership team has been appointed and in June 2018 the school received a very positive report from HMI of schools. In September 2018 the school officially became an Academy, part of the ALP MAT that also runs Parkside Academy in Willington.