Burnside has had several names over the past century. On 15th July 1960 the school was officially opened by the Chairman of Parsons and was known then as Wallsend County Technical School. This new building (shown in the photograph at the bottom left) was added to the same site as the existing Grammar School. Building had commenced on the 8th July 1957 and students were able to use the building from 5th January 1960. The cost for the building work was Ā£252,000, with furniture and equipment costing an additional Ā£27,000.
The school was originally designed for 660 students from the age of eleven and included provision for sixth form courses. The building of the technical college was influenced, as in other areas, by the post-war “Baby-Boom”.
In 1969 on the 3rd September the school was renamed to Burnside High School and encompassed the existing buildings of the former Grammar and Technical schools. A comprehensive high school for students aged 13-18 formed initially from all students at the Technical School, the Central Secondary School, the Western Secondary School. The school opened with a roll of 970 students and 56 members of staff. The first Head Teacher was Mr Austin, with Mr Kirtley as Deputy Head.
The Technical School became known as the Main Building, the Grammar School as the Annex.
In 2002, Burnside expanded to take in students aged 11-18 as years 7 and 8 from Central, Western and High Farm Middle Schools joined. At the same time work began by Kajima (a Japanese Contruction Company) to build a new school on the same site. The school design was to encapsulate modern architecture with Wallsend’s Roman Heritage and as a result the school was designed abstractly on a Roman Mile Castle, which would have been situated every mile on Hadrian’s Wall. The whole project cost around Ā£15m, a big difference from the Ā£280,000 it cost to build the old Technical School in 1960.
In September 2004 Burnside moved into its new building on the site of the Annex and Main Building sites and became known as Burnside College.
