Collective Spirit Free School

History

Collective Spirit Free School was a school that catered for children aged 11-16. It was built to hold 400 students, however only 243 students attended once the school opened in September 2013 on the old site of South Chadderton School. In 2012 South Chadderton School joined with Kaskenmoor School which then became Oasis Academy Oldham. After this merge, the school was re-located allowing Collective Spirit to be formed. The opening of the school was said to be controversial as it was the first free school in the Borough of Oldham. The opening also caused further controversy due to the land that the school is situated on is "prime development land" and worth an estimated £1.1 million. Many people thought that 'giving' the school the land was a lost opportunity to sell the land to a developer.

Ofsted have a timeline of the school's life and inspections that were carried out. A full inspection took place in May 2016 and Ofsted ruled all areas to be inadequate which is the worst rating the board can give. A monitoring visit later took place in November 2016 before it closed the following year in August. A local MP called for the school to be closed after the Ofsted report and went ahead to say: "students weren't being given an acceptable standard of education and that students felt unsafe due to bullying and fighting". He further stated it was one of the "most damming" Ofsted reports he'd ever seen. Since then the site has been left abandoned. After a bit of digging, it appears a report was written on South School in 2013 in the gap where the previous schools vacated and Collective Spirit was getting ready to become a reality. It is fair to say a bit has changed this then.

A quick check of the news in the area pulled this site up.

The exterior offered large spaces for pupils to use on their breaks etc..

This part of the site was new and clean and also had power running through it which was a promising sign.

Inside long corridors with side lighting that still worked could be found.

The classrooms were stripped bare and also very new looking.

Here is the actual entrance. The stonework added some sort of character to the building.

To the right of the lobby was the assembly hall and kitchen. The hall would presumably been used as a space to eat at lunchtime as no canteen could be found.

Since these photos were taken, further vandalism has occurred. More glassware has been smashed and items thrown around the room. You can see the difference below:

Directly above the ground floor labs were another set with pupil's work left hanging on the walls.

The changing rooms were either part scrapped or getting stripped. The lighting merely held on to the new drop ceiling that had been half removed.