Two decades ago, a circular building rose out of a field in Telford, and a community began to change. As Hadley Learning Community marks its 20th anniversary, past and present staff reflect with pride on an incredible journey….
When Gill Eatough was appointed to lead the brand-new Hadley Learning Community in the autumn of 2003, her previous employers were baffled. “Why are you leaving us so quickly?” they asked. “You’ve got no building, no school, and no children.”
Her answer was simple: “I’ve got about 18 months to make this school happen. We’ve got to design it, build it, and open it. There’s no time to lose.”
Three existing schools were being closed to make way for the ambitious new campus, and Gill found herself working from Telford & Wrekin Council’s civic offices as the project took shape.
On August 19 2006, she was handed the keys… the moment she could finally walk into the building she had spent three years dreaming of, and helping to shape.
“It was on time and on budget, which for a building of that size was a tremendous achievement,” she says.
The secondary phase opened first, originally just as classrooms without the sports hall, swimming pool, theatre or dance studio. PE changing rooms were in portable buildings at that stage, and students arriving on the first day in September asked: “Where are all the fun bits?”
Over the Christmas holidays, the primary school, children’s centre and community facilities were completed, and when the pupils returned from their break, the entire campus was up and running.
Since then, Hadley Learning Community has educated more than 4,000 secondary and 1,500 primary students – and the schools became so popular that they had to be expanded to meet the needs of a growing community.
For Gill, the memory of that first morning has never faded. “I can just remember standing in the secondary entrance, and this wave of children coming towards me in their new uniform. It was a very emotional moment.”
Hadley Learning Community was, by any measure, a one-off. A £70 million all-through campus – primary, secondary, children’s centre, community facilities and a special school on one interconnected, circular site – the likes of which had never been built before.
“I’m indebted to Telford & Wrekin Council,” Gill says. “The work they did with the Department for Education to push through the concept of an all-through school which had never been done in the area before, was visionary.
“Working with architects, builders and designers, I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to create something that was innovative and different.
“The council essentially gave me a blank sheet of paper, and off I went to set up the school. Their trust and confidence in us to create HLC was amazing.”
Her brief was twofold: deliver the best school possible and make the campus a genuine community focus in a highly disadvantaged area.
“There was a lot of social unrest in the area when we opened the school,” Gill recalls. “Hadley was not a very happy place. Through the school, we really helped to change the area.”
Working closely with Hadley and Leegomery Parish Council, the new school also proved to be a springboard for a major regeneration of Hadley’s local centre.
Twenty years on, secondary school principal Daniel Roycroft says the building looks as good as the day it was built: “I think that’s a testament to how much the children and the wider community value what they have.”
He was one of the original staff who remembers touring the unfinished building in hard hat and high-vis jacket before taking up his original role as head of humanities.
Since then, he has held various posts including assistant head, deputy head, secondary head and now HLC principal.
The anniversary coincides with some of the best GCSE results in the school’s history. More than one in five results were high grades this summer, with particularly strong performances in sciences, and a string of distinctions in health and social care, engineering, dance and sport BTECs.
Daniel says: “We have achieved national averages in GCSE English and maths at grade 9-5, with maths in particular moving forward so much. And at primary level, our SATs results are outstanding.”
Today, HLC is part of the Learning Community Trust, which runs more than a dozen school sites across Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin.
The Trust is headed up by Paul Roberts, who spent 13 years at HLC from 2009, serving as principal and executive principal.
He says: “HLC has not only realised its vision of being an exceptional school for young people, but has also become the heart of its community. It has grown into a place where students, families, staff and the wider community share a deep sense of pride and belonging.
“Every success has been built upon the school’s enduring values, which have shaped both outstanding academic achievement and the development of confident, compassionate and ambitious young people. The impact of this work is evident in the lives it has changed and the community it has strengthened.
“As HLC marks this significant milestone, its families, students and staff can take great pride in all they have achieved together and in the remarkable school they have created.
Many former HLC teachers have gone on to take up senior roles at other schools over the years, including Caroline Bedford who is now principal of Burton Borough School in Newport, and Nick Murphy who is principal at Ercall Wood Academy in Wellington.
Gill says: “We always wanted HLC to grow its own leaders, and it has. For the school to have created such a new generation of head teachers is a fantastic legacy.”
Daniel adds: “We have many long-serving staff – teachers, teaching assistants and admin staff – who have been here for the full 20 years. I’m not the only one. People like it here. They value their roles and how we treat them.”
Past and present staff pay tribute to the school’s governing body which they say has been ‘unbelievably fantastic’ over the years in supporting the leadership teams.
Maddie Griffin is now executive director of education at the Learning Community Trust, and says it was a ‘real privilege’ to serve as head of HLC primary and play a part in the school’s journey.
“HLC has always been about much more than academic success; it is a school at the heart of its community, with a genuine ambition to create opportunities and improve the life chances of every child.
“I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved during my time as headteacher, particularly seeing the primary school grow to a thriving three-form entry school while retaining that strong sense of community and belonging. It is very special to now continue supporting HLC in my role as Executive Director of Education for the Learning Community Trust.
“Twenty years on, the original vision for HLC remains just as powerful: children and families deserve an exceptional education, high expectations and every opportunity to succeed. It is a privilege to remain part of that journey.”
The current head of HLC primary is Ben Evans. He says: “Since joining HLC, I have been struck by the warmth, ambition and sense of belonging that runs through everything we do. I feel incredibly proud and privileged to be headteacher of such a special school at the heart of our community.
“One of the things I love most is meeting former students who come back to visit and hearing them talk about how much they enjoyed their time here and the memories they still carry with them.”
A brand-new school arrived with no traditions, so HLC had to invent its own, from uniform to sports teams, and enrichment programmes. And it did. School shows and the ever-popular Dance Fest have now become now so big they are staged at local theatres.
Daniel fondly remembers one project in the early years to make a series of short films with local people about what the local area meant to them.
“It was about getting the community to understand that the school was going to be a really positive thing for them. And that worked really well. It was the first of many such projects over the years.”
Gill, who has received an MBE for her services to education, retired in 2022, but still gets approached by past pupils.
“I was standing by the Tree of Light in Telford town centre at Christmas, when I was approached by a former student. She got a bit tearful and apologised for being so difficult at school, and thanked me for sticking by her, and not kicking her out, so she could make something of herself.”
Then there is the class of 2017 – the children who joined HLC in reception and went all the way through to Year 11 to become the first ‘all-through’ cohort.
Gill says: “That was really special. I knew those families so well, because I’d worked with those students since they were four or five years old, right the way through to 16. That was such a big moment.”
Today, children at HLC between them speak 50 different languages, and the school celebrates that diversity as part of its identity. The all-through model still binds the campus together: primary pupils go to the secondary building for science lessons, and secondary staff deliver languages to primary. “We are all one,” says Daniel – “in so many ways.”
A series of events are planned over the coming months to mark HLC’s 20th anniversary. Long-service awards will be held, and the community will be invited to join a big garden party in the coming months, echoing Jubilee celebrations and a glamorous 10th-anniversary ball, where the builders who created the school returned as guests of honour.
The school’s early years were famously documented in seven films by Teachers’ TV, where cameras followed Gill for a year as the new building took shape. The shows, voiced by presenter John Craven, can still be seen online.
For the future, Daniel’s ambition is unambiguous: “We want to be among the most successful schools in the country in every element of what we do. We want to be in that top 20%.”
But the deeper hope is for the community: that it continues to grow, values education, and sees HLC as the platform that opens doors.
As Gill puts it, education is ‘that passport’, and the school’s mantra to students has always been to embrace opportunity.
Gill still visits the site today, and says: “It is so emotional to see it working in the way that we set out. It’s got the same ethos, and drive, and ambition for the children that it had from the day we started, which is such a lovely legacy.
“I’m incredibly proud of the place, and I always will be.”
