Site of former school where ‘anarchy diary’ sparked teacher’s strikes due to be flogged for housing

Oldham Council is seeking a fresh start for a site once home to two notorious schools.

The land on Butterworth Lane in Chadderton is being flogged for development and could accommodate up to 175 new homes. 

The 10.8 acre area, last estimated to be worth more than £4m by council sources, is being advertised by commercial property sellers LoopNet as a ‘prime redevelopment opportunity’. 

Cllr Elaine Taylor, Cabinet Member for Decent Homes, said: “The former South Chadderton school site is a vacant brownfield site which has been identified as being suitable for residential redevelopment. Oldham is in a housing crisis, and it makes perfect sense to re-use the land, which has been vacant for seven years, for much-needed new homes.

“We are currently marketing the site to potential developers and would like to see high-quality low carbon housing, including a mix of affordable and private sale homes, built on it. Any decision on who develops the site will be subject to Cabinet approval and the selected developer securing full planning permission, which will include detailed consultation with the local community.”

The land, which borders Rochdale Canal, Hollinwood Avenue and Whitegate End Primary School, is now just a field. But the site was once home to South Chadderton School and the Collective Spirit School. 

Both schools faced controversies while they were open, with South Chadderton hitting national headlines in 2007 after being linked to a teacher’s leaked ‘anarchy diary’. The journal by ‘Teacher B’ logged a catalogue of horrible abuse faced by teachers and pupils by certain kids at the school. 

The incidents included a pupil pouring urine over another child, overt sexual threats made to female students and teachers being physically attacked in hallways multiple times over a three-year period.  

The diary was published by a teaching union after a copy sent to Oldham Council at the time was reportedly ‘ignored’. Staff at the school took industrial action after a teacher and suspected author of the diary was suspended following its publication. 

The school later merged with another local secondary, Kaskenmoor, and became Oasis Academy Oldham, now located in Hollinwood. The new school has a Good Ofsted rating.

But that wasn’t the only school that faced difficulties on the plot. Collective Spirit School moved into the site in 2013 but closed down only three years later after being placed into ‘special measures’ by Ofsted. 

Problems uncovered by the watchdog included ‘inadequate’ safety measures and meals that were of such poor quality that children were throwing them away and going hungry.

Oldham council re-acquired the land rights, which had been forcibly handed to Collective Spirit School under Michael Gove, in 2020. Town hall immediately declared its decision to turn a corner on the plot’s unlucky history by changing the use of the land. 

The council intends to decide on a developer by the end of September and complete the sale in October.