The Greenlands took over the school in 1977 as Maintained Education in England began to experience the difficulties that the ‘modern' approach would inevitably bring. Mrs. Greenland had been teaching at the school for 5 years and Mr. Greenland had been an industrial chemist and was therefore able to bring to the school the requirements of the business world. Like many independent schools the new heads firmly believed in the traditional virtues of fairly formal education built on a basis of discipline and good manners; values that the parents also appreciated. The Parents Association was formed at this time and has supported the school with donations of books, equipment and artistic development funds ever since. Under the Greenlands the school was totally rebuilt. The first building resulted in the loss of Apple Cottage and an extra classroom was added to the school to cope with the beginnings of the demands for places. The Pre-Prep School was rebuilt in 1984 and the entrance lobby was redesigned to provide separate toilet facilities for the staff - they used to share with the Nursery class. The kitchens were rebuilt and redesigned and industrial cookers and cooking facilities were installed. For a short time a greatly expanded library was repositioned to the hall of the house to make space for an additional classroom. In 1987 the top school was demolished and rebuilt to include an additional classroom and new cloakroom facilities.

The explosion of the new technology showed Heathcote School leading the way with the purchase of three Tandy 8KB computers. These were soon disposed of and replaced with the giant BBC Computers with 32KB of memory. In 1989 the old dental surgery was purchased and turned into a range of technical classrooms to accommodate the exciting new large computers. The BBC computer revolutionised school computing and 10 were bought at a cost over £500 each. These computers shared their room with a music room. A new, purpose built library and video facility was provided and an art and design technology facility was incorporated in the area. The BBC computers have now been replaced by fully networked Pentium PC's with an ISDN connection to the Internet. Every classroom has been equipped with PC's and laptop computers are available for the children to take home

The syllabus has been refined and adapted to reflect the needs of a modern education whilst still retaining the guiding principals of the school. Speech and Drama, formal Science and Computing have been added to the syllabus and the children now swim throughout the year. The Nursery class has been divided into two classes, Nursery and Pre-Kindergarten, to expand the opportunities available to much younger children.

The Nineties recognised that children had special learning difficulties and Heathcote School was again at the forefront of the teaching of children with dyslexia, beginning in 1977 with a desk set up in the house. Mr. Jolly taught children whose difficulties had been identified when a screen of all pupils was carried out. Heathcote School was one of the first schools in England to operate such a comprehensive survey for dyslexia and other related problems. A completely revolutionary idea at the time. This check has now largely been superseded by a much more efficient computer screening allowing us to identify children, at an early age, who may develop a learning difficulty later in the school. The school also, during that time, began to develop its Special Needs Plus policy which encouraged our very bright children to attain such excellent and consistent examination results. (Visit our examination successes page to see the latest results) Mrs. Greenland trained to be a screener for the Irlen Syndrome, identifying children where specially tinted lenses can assist their reading and learning. As ‘new' learning difficulties are discovered, such as ADD and ADHD, we find that we were already dealing with the problem - we just didn't know the name!

We are proud that the continuing history of the school reflects the original ideas of Mrs. Latham and their subsequent development by Mr. & Mrs. Heath and we shall continue to hold true to those beliefs for they are our future.