An End of Terms

"According to education charity SCHOOLS NorthEast the current funding arrangements see schools in the region receive £45.6m less each year than the national average.”

This series documents the final days of a high school and its close-knit community as they undergo the process of relocation to a new purpose built premises.
As a past pupil of the school, I embarked on a reflective journey revisiting the place of my former education. My series invokes the universal sense of nostalgia that is associated with memories of educational institutions.
An End of Terms forms a portrait of a school in limbo as an entire community is downsized and relocated from its historic but dilapidated split-site location.
The move comes after years of campaigning for funding for a new school building. In 2010 the former Education Secretary Michael Gove described the North Northumberland school as having “some of the worst buildings I have seen”.
In 2012 the Duchess’s Community High school, Alnwick was finally added to the list of schools to be rebuilt with Government assistance.
The long overdue government-funded development calls into question the school’s sense of identity. As community and unique building are pulled apart, can the essence of the Duchess’s Community High school survive in a standardised and potentially characterless institutional building?