Welcome

Sidney Stringer School opened in 1971 as the first urban community school in England. Its mission as a community school was to serve the whole population of the community, not just the children, through open access to educational provision and all facilities seven days a week, for most of the year. Learners of all ages worked together, and a crèche supported those adults with young children.

The school was named after Alderman Sidney Stringer, a former mayor of Coventry who dedicated himself to the rebuilding of the city after the devastation of the second world war. The school was Coventry’s  expression of commitment to one of its poorest communities, very much in the spirit of Sidney Stringer’s own vision of hope and renewal.

Thus was created a school with a unique ethos – that of a school which the community felt belonged to them. This attachment to the school has never wavered, despite some difficult times in the 1980s and early 1990s when hardship, deprivation and crime were all too common features of the local area.

Today the school serves a bustling area, close to the city centre with the most diverse population of any in the city. Numbers of students on roll, which fell to an all-time low of around 670 in the 1990s, have risen rapidly in recent years and the school is oversubscribed in some year groups.
Students enjoy their time at school and they say that they feel very much part of a family.

The development of the school as the Sidney Stringer Academy will be an exciting new phase in the evolution of the school, still at the heart of its community.
This brief introduction can only give a flavour of the experience of Sidney Stringer – if you would like to know more about the school then the best way is to visit us. You will be made very welcome.

Click here to download a prospectus

Brian Worrall
Head Teacher