Part 5 brings the two main Laindon secondary-school histories together in the creation of James Hornsby and explains why the new school was given its name.
By the 1990s pupil numbers in several Basildon secondary schools had fallen. Essex County Council reviewed the number of available school places and proposed combining Nicholas School with The Laindon School.
The new James Hornsby High School was created in September 1998. Although the Nicholas site had been chosen as its permanent home, extensive refurbishment work meant the new school initially operated from the former Laindon School buildings on High Road.
The school was named after James Hornsby, the nineteenth-century schoolmaster who spent 48 years teaching at the old Puckle's Charity School beside St Nicholas Church. The name deliberately connected the modern secondary school with Laindon's much older educational history.
For the 1998–99 and 1999–2000 school years, James Hornsby used the former Laindon School site. This meant that although The Laindon School had ceased to exist as an individual institution, pupils continued to be educated in the High Road buildings for another two years.
After a refurbishment programme costing more than £5 million, the school moved to the former Nicholas site. The first day of the new term at Leinster Road was 5 September 2000 for Year 7 pupils, with the remaining year groups following.
An official opening ceremony was held on 12 October 2000. The project retained and refurbished existing Nicholas buildings while adding new facilities for the combined school.
The school was originally known as James Hornsby High School. From the school term beginning in September 2012, the name The James Hornsby School was adopted.
The old High Road campus remained standing for several years after James Hornsby moved out. Parts were used by nursery and childcare organisations, but demolition began in 2007 and the site was redeveloped for housing as Radford Park.
The creation of James Hornsby brought together two strands of twentieth-century Laindon secondary education: the High Road school founded in 1928 and Nicholas School founded in 1963. Its name reaches even further back to the nineteenth-century church school.
Laindon's educational landscape still contains buildings from several different eras. Laindon Park preserves the nineteenth-century Board School tradition, Janet Duke occupies the historic Markhams Chase site, and The James Hornsby School continues secondary education on the former Nicholas site.