Skip secondary navigation

The 1980s

header-the-1980s

Share this:
The 1980s

1980

The number of students reaches 100. Joanne Slade becomes the first student with complex disabilities to pass her Royal Society of Arts typing exam with the aid of a head stick.

Share this:
Alison French

1981

Student Alison French is featured in a national TV programme called ‘Forty Minutes’.

Share this:
The 1980s

1982

The commerce and typing department is enlarged to include computing and word processing.

Share this:
The 1980s

1983

New accommodation for six students, Moose Bungalow (now Malvern), opens.

Share this:
The 1980s

1984

Former student Robert Jones is the only person with disabilities to be chosen for the first Operation Raleigh expedition.

Share this:
The 1980s

1985

New Court opens with teaching rooms, resource centre, workshop, speech therapy unit and home economics department.

Share this:
The 1980s

1987

A BTEC First Diploma course in business and finance is launched.

Share this:
Patrick's story

1987

Student Patrick Bates presents a paper at a conference for the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication.

Share this:
The 1980s

1988

Shortwood Farmhouse is extended and refurbished.

Share this:
The 1980s

1989

The Duchess of Kent building opens and includes teaching rooms, a kitchen, a dining room and a library.

Share this:
Patrick's story

Patrick’s story

Patrick, who has athetoid cerebral palsy, was one of the first National Star students to control a personal communication device when he joined the college in 1985.

Share this:
Read his story