Littlehampton Academy first impressions are uniformly positive

SARTORIAL elegance swept like a wave over Littlehampton this week, as students knotted their ties and put on their blazers to start life at the town's new Academy.

The smart black jackets, with the academy badge, were perhaps the most noticeable evidence of a new educational era dawning in Littlehampton.

For principal Steve Jewell, who was in his office by 7am on Monday (September 7), it was every bit as exciting as for the 1,700 students arriving for their first day there, just over an hour later.

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He said: "It was a very positive first day, amazing! The students look very smart and we have had a lot of feedback from parents and from the community, saying how good they look in their new uniform.

"Things went remarkably smoothly, considering we were opening a new school, with 1,700 students. And we were thrilled to welcome back so many students to our college, the largest number of sixth-formers we have had for many years."

New signs for The Littlehampton Academy (TLA) have replaced the old Littlehampton Community School (LCS) boards, and in a bid to reinforce the message that this is a new school, all 215 rooms have been numbered differently, so that everyone has to learn them from scratch.

New 'chapters' for new era

Year groups, which themselves replaced the old house system at LCS five years ago, have now been superseded by six "chapters", one for the sixth-form college and one for each of the lower years. At the moment these have colours such as red, blue, yellow and green, but the academy will consult with students over a longer-term name for each group.

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Each chapter will also be linked to another part of the world, in some cases building on overseas links developed over the years by LCS.

It will be another couple of years before the longed-for new buildings, still on the drawing board, are completed, but in the meantime, some of the extra government funding given to the academy has been spent over the summer holidays on sprucing up the approach to the main building, refurbishing six toilet blocks, repainting corridors and giving them new floor coverings.

For a special feature on the new Littlehampton Academy, see this week's Littlehampton Gazette, on sale now.

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