Woodside Middle School Goldington

Woodside was built as a middle school, for children aged nine to thirteen in the early 1970s. At this period the LEA, Bedfordshire County Council, was introducing comprehensive education, doing away with the two-tier system introduced in the Education Act 1944 in which children were separated by ability at age eleven into those going to grammar schools and those going to county secondary and county secondary modern schools which gave a more technical education.

Under the new system children went to mixed-ability schools in three tiers - lower schools up to age nine, middle schools from age nine to thirteen and upper schools for those aged thirteen to eighteen. In 2009 Bedfordshire County Council was abolished and Bedford Borough became local education authority for Bedford. In 2011 the decision was taken to close Woodside Middle School, with younger children attending the newly built Putnoe Primary School and those aged eleven and over attending Mark Rutherford School.