IT was the specialist language college that prided itself on its international links.

Teenagers from both the girls’ and boys’ schools, which made up Woolston Secondary School, regularly enjoyed field trips to various parts of Europe including Germany, Austria and Italy.

In 2003 the school was renamed Woolston School Language College to reflect this passion for overseas cultures.

This changed from Woolston Secondary School, which was named more than 50 years earlier, in 1949, when a ceremony was held and a plaque unveiled.

In October 1972 the site, sandwiched between Portsmouth Road and Portchester Road was deemed “inadequate for the work of a comprehensive school of this size.” Despite tutoring 640 pupils, it was the smallest school site in Southampton

At that time proposals were in pipeline for a completely new school in the Inkerman Road area in the heart of Woolston.

The long-awaited £3m replacement school never materialised, instead, thousands of pounds were spent on refurbishing the site.

Earlier on in the school’s history another annexe, Mayfair House in Portsmouth Road, was used during the 1950s for learning support and needlework lessons.

According to school records, it was back in 1915 that an educational establishment was first sited on Woolston School’s present Porchester Road site.

At that time it was used as a teacher training centre up until the First World War. During the 1920s the school went through two name changes; Sholing Station Road County School and Southampton Itchen Secondary School. During the Second World War Allied troops were billeted in the school’s humanities corridor before the D-Day landings while the science block was used as a makeshift canteen for Vosper Thornycroft shipbuilder workers.

The school – which saw many of its pupils evacuated out of the city – was also used as an Air Raid Patrol station.

In 1945 the school became two single-sex secondary modern schools then, in 1957, the school was reorganised as a mixed secondary school. From September 1967 it became a secondary comprehensive school.

Woolston School closed for good on July 18, 2008, when it merged with Grove Park Business and Enterprise College to become Oasis Academy Mayfield.

The site was used as an annexe for the new school until 2011 and the buildings were torn down to make way for homes in 2017.