Wootton Upper School

Wootton Upper School September 2007

In the 1970s Bedfordshire County Council introduced comprehensive education, doing away with the 11+ examination and grammar schools and introducing a tier of school between the old County Primary and County Secondary Schools. Thus Lower Schools now taught children aged 4 to 9, Middle Schools from 9 to 13 and Upper Schools from 13 onwards.

A new upper school serving the area was built in Hall End Road and opened in 1976 as Wootton Upper School. Since 2002 the school has been a specialist performing arts college.

In April 2009 Bedfordshire County Council was abolished and its local education authority functions split between two new unitary authorities, Bedford Borough Council (the former district council) and Central Bedfordshire Council (a merger of the former Mid and South Bedfordshire district councils). Wootton Upper School is in Bedford Borough but one of its feeder middle schools is Holywell Middle School in Cranfield, which is in Central Bedfordshire.