 In March 2016 the school was placed in special measures after an OFSTED report found it to be inadequate in every area except its sixth form, which followed a serious decline in examination results over the previous two years.The school was formerly two single-sex schools, Herbert Kay and Westlands.As the school is now mixed-sex it retains a sense of nostalgia by keeping the original terms as classroom titles, thus each side is now simply titled Kay Side and West Side.