Colleges which started recruiting 14-year-old students have faced “open hostility” from some local schools.

Speaking at the Association of Colleges’ annual conference in Birmingham today, Debra Gray, acting principal at the Grimsby Institute, spoke about the difficulties it had faced in opening its centre for 14-16 students, The Academy Grimsby.

Ms Gray admitted that promoting it to parents and prospective pupils in the area had proved challenging.

The academy aspired to a “private school ethos with a clear vocational focus”, she said, and required specialist knowledge from specialist school teachers, rather than solely relying on college staff.  

Ms Gray told delegates she had been surprised at the “open hostility” from some in the school sector, with one leader threatening to “send us all their BSM - bad, sad and mad - pupils”. 

“I was used to being in competition with other colleges, but I did not expect this,” she said. “People saying in open assembly that ‘You shouldn’t go here’.”

Paul Thundercliffe, headteacher of The Academy Grimsby, admitted its relationship with other schools in the area had been a challenge. “They were telling people you couldn’t go to university from here, it was just for the naughty kids,” he said.

The first group of four colleges started offering 14-16 provision in 2013-14. In September the Education Funding Agency revealed that six more colleges intended to directly recruit younger learners in 2015-16.

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