Sport and dance helped Sir Rod Aldridge overcome early academic disappointment – and now his foundation has turned his former Portslade school around. DUNCAN HALL finds out how he wants to use both to help the city’s young people.
WHEN Theresa May announced plans to expand grammar schools in the UK one of her fiercest critics was a successful businessman who suffered the negative effects of the 11 plus exam.
Even today, 58 years on, millionaire philanthropist Sir Rod Aldridge says he feels frustrated with himself for failing the exam: “I felt I had let myself down in educational terms,” he says. “And education had let me down.” Upon retiring as chairman of outsourcing company Capita ten years ago Sir Rod, 69, launched the Aldridge Foundation. The charity is now behind not only Brighton Aldridge Community Academy (BACA), but also his former school, the Portslade County School for Boys, now the Portslade Aldridge Community Academy (PACA). Together the two schools mark a £42m investment in education in his former hometown. In two years they have gone from requiring improvement to earning “good” ratings on their 2016 Ofsted reports. Part of that may be down to Sir Rod’s attitude towards education, and his desire to push it forward into the 21st century. “I still feel we are developing kids for the past, not kids for the future,” he says. “A lot of the jobs they will be doing are not even created at the moment.”
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