Report on a Bauhaus school in the UK
Image credit: Impington Village College, Photograph: Graham Turner/the Guardian
All copy is reproduced here as it was supplied by Oliver Bennett to the client or publication.
This autumn Impington Village College, in the rapidly growing commuter belt around Cambridge, has had a bit of a moment. The comprehensive academy – my old school – has seen the culmination of a two-year celebration set up to mark its 75th anniversary, and it’s been bursting with activity – holding lectures, symposia and workshops.
Arranging chairs and organising photographs at the school on an autumn morning is Elena Cologni, artist in residence at the school. “Impington has such a rich story: the social history, the architectural history,” she says. “It’s of international relevance.” And yes, it is – although as an undistinguished Impington alumnus from the 1970s, I didn’t appreciate it at the time.
Still, I knew that Impington had two key claims to fame. The first was that it was one of a pioneering group of rural schools in South Cambridgeshire called the village colleges, also including Sawston, Bottisham, Linton and Bassingbourn – with others (including Soham and Comberton) arriving later in similar spirit. Set up by pioneering educationalist Henry Morris, chief education officer for Cambridgeshire, the village colleges became a national model for a kind of community-based comprehensive, before the Butler Act came along.
Continued/