Cromwell High School- originally situated on the Denton/Reddish border on Thornley Lane South- was built as a special school for students aged 11-21yrs in approximately 1978. Located close to Cromwell Avenue, this appears to be the origin of our name. In 2002 the school moved building to Dukinfield to be co-located with the then Astley Sports College (now Rayner Stephens High School). This process was led by Mr Mark Rodgers- of Cromwell- and Mr John Mayes- of Astley. At this point the school's Sixth Form was moved to Tameside College to become the Dovestones unit under the management of the college. It is now called Aspirations. We had an extension opened in 2014 to accomodate 2 classes which allowed a much needed reorganisation of the rest of the school. In 2016 our school suffered an arson fire (pictured below) which destroyed the middle third of the school and necessitated the school being accomodated for 18 months by Inspire Academy, Ashton thanks to the generosity of Mrs Karen Burns (Executive Principle) and her staff. Support from the local community and the Local Authority was fantastic. The middle third of school was rebuilt to a new design and we moved back in September 2017. Thanks to the fantastic commitment of staff, the school was only closed for 5 days following the fire and for 2 extra days to move back after the building work!
In September 2019 a small number of pupils stayed on as the beginning of our Sixth Form provision and in September 2020 full Sixth Form provision was begun.
Our Chair of Governors for over 30 years was the late Mr Albert Hatton (pictured below). Albert was also a councillor and Mayor of Tameside and made a huge contribution to the Tameside community and our school. In 2014 he was succeeded by Mrs Jane Bates- the mother of one of our former pupils and a retired nurse.
Headteachers have been:
Ian Selkirk- from opening to 1994
Mark Rodgers 1994 - 2001 (seconded to the LA for the following 2 years)
Sarah Cooper (Acting) 2001-2003 (otherwise Deputy from the late 1997 to 2010)
Andrew Foord 2003- 2023 (temporarily changing to Executive Headteacher in 2017 (with Samuel Laycock) and returning to Headteacher in Sept 2020)
Head of School: Joanna Breakwell 2017 - Aug 2020
School would like to offer special thanks to our former, now retired, Assistant Headteacher Mrs Yvonne Hart and Deputy Headteacher, Mrs Julie Koziarski for their exemplary contribution to the development of our school and all we can do for our pupils.
We would like to celebrate the lives of the following pupils who sadly died whilst pupils of Cromwell High School (after moving to our current site):
Noel Gilchrist
Louise Shaw
Samantha Carton
Emma Stones
Alex Dilkes
Abbiegail Tinkley
Devon Burgess
Sarim Khan
and those who died shortly afterwards whilst in education: Callum Davis, James Shaw, Jordon Sutton, Gar Hing, Domic O'Donnell, Shannon Cully, Katie Mellor.
and Mrs Sheila Newberry (Teaching Assistant) who died in service in 2014.
We would also like to thank some of our longest serving, now retired, staff, giving sustained and committed service to our pupils over many years:
Mrs Irene Pilkington (School Busar)
Mrs Judith Swann (Teaching Assistant)
Mrs Janet Bowd (Teacher)
Mrs Gill Powers (Teaching Assistant)
If anyone has any additional information about the history of our school please contact school to add detail to this page.
