‘Military school’ faces its Waterloo

OLDHAM could miss out on a controversial military-type school... to the set of BBC drama “Waterloo Road”.

TV could be turned into reality: the former Hill Top School in Rochdale — where the classroom series was filmed — is also on the hit list to house the Phoenix Free School.

Breeze Hill is still the preferred target for Phoenix as D-Day looms — they will be interviewed by the Department for Education a week today. If the bid is successful, the school will open in September 2013 — the first UK school to be staffed entirely by ex-armed forces personnel.

Backers of the project, which will need to be approved by the Government, say they have signed 208 potential pupils, currently in Years four and five. The school is just short of the 120 pupils needed for the first year.

Free schools are outside local authority control but state funded. The latest round of applications closed in December.

Phoenix would promote discipline and character building and is the idea of education publisher Tom Burkard and Army officer Capt Affan Burki.

Pupils would initially receive intensive instruction in English and maths and undertake adventure activities. They would then follow a wider curriculum with some subjects provided by volunteers.

Other potential sites in Oldham are the former Kaskenmoor, South Chadderton and St Augustine schools while Balderstone Technology College, Rochdale, is also being considered.




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