Cambourne Village College has enjoyed remarkable success since opening in 2013, gaining an early Ofsted Outstanding rating along with a host of further awards and designations.
Alongside excellent examination results, we offer arts, music and cultural activity at the highest level. All our pupils study music, drama, dance and art across Key Stage 3. Annual musical theatre productions, termly concerts, the school orchestra, ensembles and choirs offer many opportunities to build confidence through performance. For younger pupils, Cambourne Music School for primary musicians is run by our Music Department after school hours on three evenings per week. The College is currently applying for the Artsmark Platinum Award as recognition of this exceptional curriculum breadth.
We strive to be a welcoming and inclusive school for all our pupils and also to fulfil our Village College ethos in serving the whole community: we support an active adult education programme and more than 30 local groups and organisations make use of the school’s facilities, out of hours. This unusual commitment to our local community was a key factor in our winning a prestigious Silver Award in the ‘Making a Difference’ category of the Pearson School of the Year celebrations in 2018.
Central to our ethos is the vision of developing excellence in music and the performing arts for Cambourne and beyond, bringing an enriched cultural dimension to the lives of our pupils and to the growing local population.
In 2018, the Cambourne Village College Charitable Trust was formed to equip a new hall, provided at the school in partnership with the Cambourne Parish/Town Council and Cambridgeshire County Councils, as an arts centre for the school and community. The huge new hall had wonderful potential and the infrastructure to support a theatre, but was handed over as a basic, empty space. Over the past five years, the Charitable Trust has worked to raise almost £350,000 to equip the hall with tiered seating and full stage facilities to create the professional-quality Coates Theatre’, opened in March 2023, for the school and town. This wonderful facility has transformed opportunities for our students and our wider community to see, experience and take part in arts, music and cultural activity of the highest quality.
Local people voted a cinema amongst their most desired additional amenities for the town in the latest survey for the Town Plan. With this in mind, the Charitable Trust is now working with the school to create a community cinema venue in the new Sixth Form Centre. This will enhance the facilities for students studying performing arts and provide a separate cinema venue for the town. With the capacity to show top-ranking box-office films through community cinema outlets just weeks after release and live satellite broadcasts of west-end theatre and opera, this latest venture will provide an exciting new amenity for Cambourne.
This is an ambitious project for the town; it will rely on the support of Cambourne Village College, of local people and of the Town Council to support its set-up and ongoing success, but with a comfortable 180 seat venue, excellent facilities and free parking, we have the potential to create a thriving community cinema. This could grow to host several weekly performances with wide-ranging appeal in the style of the successful Saffron Screen, based in a similar venue within the secondary school in Saffron Walden: Saffron Screen
The Charitable Trust is grateful to our donors, listed below, for their generous support of our fundraising to equip the Coates Theatre to professional standards; this venue is now in full use.
The Trust is now raising funds to equip the newly built Sixth Form Lecture Theatre as a cinema for use by the local community. This building was designed for dual use with the necessary electrical infrastructure, comfortable tiered seating and cinema blackout already installed. The Trust has raised £20,000 towards fitting out the venue and is now seeking a further £50,000 for the full cinema equipment and facilities so that regular programme of films and cultural events can be shown alongside performances in the theatre.
The Charitable Trust has re-formed for this project and we need more new members to help us move forward. People with an interest in, and some knowledge of film would be enormously welcome, as would anyone with experience of running a cinema(!) a business, of fundraising, or with simple enthusiasm to be involved in an exciting project.
If you are interested please get in touch and email John Panrucker, Charitable Trustee – Chair at cambournecommunitycinema@gmail.com.
Further information is also here: https://cambournetowncouncil.gov.uk/communitycinema/
We are currently seeking new trustees to join the Cambourne Village College Charitable Trust, so if you are interested or just want to learn more, please contact John Panrucker, Charitable Trustee – Chair at cambournecommunitycinema@gmail.com
If you would like to make a financial contribution to achieve the final phase of our vision for the Arts in Cambourne, all donations, however small, are immensely welcome.
Please visit our PEOPLE'S FUNDRAISING page for more information and how to DONATE or scan the QR code below
Cambourne Village College Charitable Trust People's Fundraising Page
Previous Cam VC Music Productions
Previous CAM VC Drama Productions
The Cambourne Village College Charitable Trust is very grateful for the donations received for the Performance Hall (now the Coates Theatre) and the ongoing fundraising for the community cinema:
Cambourne Village College
Sheepfold Lane, Cambourne
Cambridge CB23 6FR
Tel: 01954 284000
Email: thecollege@cambournevc.org
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Cambourne Village College is an academy of The Cam Academy Trust, a company limited by guarantee and registered in England and Wales with company number 0749 1945.
The registered office is at Comberton Village College, West Street, Comberton, Cambridgeshire, CB23 7DU
