Derby Moor Academy

The first buildings on the site were built in the 1960s, consisting of Stenson (prefabricated concert panels and steel construction) and Derwent (steel and brick construction).[3] These were built for the former Derby School, and the Derwent building contained several kinds of memorabilia from the old school site, including war memorials, honours boards in the hall with lists the achievements of former pupils, and a mosaic in the entrance hall of the school's badge and motto.

Derwent Building contained memorabilia of the former Derby School.

Cromford building before the school was rebuilt.

In 1992 there was a fire in part of the Stenson building, resulting in demolition of the damaged area. A new building, Cromford, was constructed on the tennis courts that were close to the entrance of the school, with the area that had been cleared becoming new tennis courts. The Cromford building was opened in 1993 by local member of parliament Margaret Beckett. The Markeaton building was built in 1999 to house The Millennium Centre, it consisted of terrapin blocks that had been linked together. Other temporary buildings were added to the site as the school outgrew its capacity, including the music block and seclusion area. Following a grant in the mid-2000s, an astroturf pitch was constructed on the south side of the site, together with extra changing rooms, and a few years later a gym, which was built thanks to a grant from Sport England because of Ivy House Special School being built on one of the top fields to the north.[2]

The front of Derby Moor Community Sports College in November 2011.

College front August 2013. Note legends above entrance.

College south aspect featuring part of original Derby School buildings.

Derby Moor took part in the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) program, being one of the test schools for Derby City along with Noel-Baker Community School. The school had a partial refurbishment and a partial new build at a cost of £19 million,[4] including £3 million on IT equipment. The new building and refurbishment was designed by Hawkins\Brown as the main architects,[5] Fabric as landscape architects and Cundall Johnston and Partners as the structural, mechanical and electrical engineer. These companies partnered with Balfour Beatty to win preferred bidder status in 2010.

The new building was designed to link together Derwent building and what was to remain of Stenson building, after it was decided that these two were to be kept. The remainder of Stenson's fabric was too damaged to be of use and Cromford, due to its construction methods, had inefficient energy usage and poor acoustics. The new building, known as the Learning Barn would provide many of the more complex facilities such as the science and technology labs and ICT suites. This allows the older buildings to provide what they are able to in terms of learning spaces as they are restricted due to the arrangement of the original steel work. The rooms and facilities are grouped in accordance with the house system; Dedication, Honour, Solidarity, Spirit and Participation respectively. There is a 'Hub' area in each faculty containing IT facilities and open learning space. In addition to this there is a main hub that contains the dining area, Flexible Learning Centre (which contains the library and IT facilities) and the sixth form centre (The Millennium Centre).

After uncertainty around whether funding would be given due to spending cuts by the UK Government, construction started in January 2011.[6] In January 2012 the PACE faculty opened,[7] this being contained in what remains of Stenson building, this included the refurbished sports hall. The rest of the building was due to open in September 2012, but due to rusting within the existing frames of Derwent building extended foundational works had to be carried out, delaying the opening. These foundational problems were found when stripping the back of Derwent building within the process of refurbishment, the problems couldn't have been identified earlier as this would have required an intrusive survey which could not be possible to be carried out when the building was a learning environment. After the refurbishment was fully completed, the demolition of the other buildings was to commence afterwards. The school opened in January 2013 and the official opening ceremony took place on 28 June 2013 as a community event.