The college has its origins in Soham Free School, established in 1686. It became known as Soham Grammar School from 1878 and occupied a site on Churchgate Street. In 1925 the grammar school moved to Beechurst House (built in 1901 and located in Sand Street, which had formerly been the home of the late
Newmarket jockey, Charles Morbey. The
grammar school took boys aged 11–18 from surrounding villages, and also had a few weekly
boarders. The name
Soham Village College comes from the former
secondary modern style
village college, which was established in 1958. The original village college took boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 15, and was built on a site next to the Soham Lode known as
Moat Fields. It took in senior children from a number of "national schools" which were converted to junior or primary schools. The village college system was the brainchild of
Henry Morris, the Chief Education Officer at
Cambridgeshire County Council. The college was officially opened by the
baronet and
MP Sir
Edward Boyle, a former
Minister for Education. Morris's emphasis was on a community-based establishment, and the college was equipped with a public library and a youth leader. The present village college emerged in 1972 when the modern
co-educational village college and the long-established grammar school merged. The merger was a direct result of the government raising the
school-leaving age to 16. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, building work was carried out under the headships of A. E. Lawrence (1972–85) and Dr A. W. Bullock (1985–99). This included the construction of the Ross Peers Sports Centre, a music block, and a science and technology block. In 1993 the college gained
grant-maintained status. This allowed for generous donations, such as the funds donated in the mid-1990s by Simon Gibson to extend the mathematics and English departments (known as the Gibson Block in his honour). In June 1998, "M Block", which contains science, humanities, ICT and languages rooms, was opened by
Princess Margaret. In August 2002 the school became infamous as the place where a double child-killer,
Ian Huntley, worked as school caretaker. Clothing from the murdered children was found in the school grounds, leading to Huntley's arrest and eventual conviction in the
Soham murders case. Huntley's house on the school site, and the storage hangar where the clothing was found, were later demolished. The school was previously a specialist
Technology College and
Language College before converting to
academy status on 1 April 2011. Since November 2019, a
parkrun (a free, weekly timed 5 km run/walk event) has taken place at Soham Village College every Saturday morning at 9.00am. ==Academic reputation==