GOOD news last week for the primary school on Worcester’s Dines Green estate, which has been nominated for a Worcestershire Education Award. Now called Dines Green Community Academy, it has been put forward in the primary school of the year category.
Top marks all round then for an establishment which has had its ups and downs over the years since it was formed by an amalgamation of Dines Green Junior and Infants departments back in 1983.
Current headteacher Andrew Morley is getting much credit for improving the school after one of its less distinguished periods, but the truth is the talent has always been there at Dines Green, particularly on the sporting side, for the school has won just about everything there is to win in the local sporting scene age groups.
When I visited for a profile piece in 1988, its trophy cabinet that year included six, covering football, in both 11 and six a side formats, rounders and netball.
It has also done well academically and produced a Shakespearian actor no less, a chap called John Price, who was a few years older than me at Worcester Royal Grammar School and appeared both on stage and on television. Sadly John died far too young in 1987.
During my visit in 1988, headmaster Paul Bevis also reeled off the regular supply of medals and awards gained by children for out of school activities as diverse as dancing, karate, judo, fishing, art and music.
The school actually had a very auspicious start when back in 1953 a drawing of it under construction was chosen to hang in the architectural room of the summer exhibition of the Royal Academy in Burlington House, London.
Architects for the school were Willis, Llewellyn Smith and Waters of Worcester and London and the drawing was completed for them by FA Evans.
The honour of having such a drawing accepted by the Royal Academy was considerable, as submissions came from nationwide. The drawing showed the nearly complete infants’ department and the just started junior section.
In the late 1960s, school supporters raised a staggering £2,000 in only 18 months to provide two heated swimming pools for the pupils, which were erected separately for juniors and infants behind wooden fencing panels.
Within a year more than 50 per cent of the children had learned to swim after what was called “a remarkable community effort”.
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