St Richard's Catholic College, or St Richard's, is a secondary school in East Sussex in the United Kingdom. It is a voluntary aided school, maintained by East Sussex County Council. The school is situated in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton. St Richard's was rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted in 2006, a rating that it sustained following an interim assessment in 2010. Of the school community, HM Inspectorate commented, 'The social, moral, spiritual and cultural development of students is outstanding'. St Richard's also scored a Level 1 (the highest rating) in each section of its 2018 Denominational Inspection Report. History St Richard's Catholic College was opened in 1959. Its construction was funded, in part, by fundraising within the local Roman Catholic community. For example, in July 1958, just under £1000 was raised by Catholics in Eastbourne for the Diocesan education fund. When it was first opened, the college was known as St Richard's Catholic School; it was named after St Richard of Chichester (1197 – 1253), who visited Bexhill during his lifetime. It is probable that St Richard built the manor house at Manor Barn, found in the ancient centre of Bexhill-on-Sea, the ruins of which are still visible today. The raison d'être of St Richard's Catholic School was to offer a denominational secondary education for the local Catholic population. Hitherto, there had been several Catholic primary schools in the area (e.g. St Mary Star of the Sea in Hastings and St Joseph's in Eastbourne), though there had been no sufficient provision for Catholic children over the age of eleven. As a result, St Joseph's in Eastbourne was severely overcrowded. The school had to take infants, juniors and seniors, despite that 'the buildings [were] totally inadequate to house all these groups for education'. St Joseph's has since closed and been replaced by St Thomas, a Becket Catholic Primary School. St Richard's was, and remains, the only Catholic secondary school in East Sussex (the nearest alternatives being in Brighton and Tunbridge Wells). It has always had a substantial catchment area, traditionally ranging from Eastbourne, through Bexhill, to the vicinity of the Hastings area. At the time of the school's construction, transporting children into Bexhill proved controversial within Eastbourne's town council. Indeed, a series of contemporary newspaper articles from the Eastbourne Gazette and Eastbourne Herald reveal the contention that surrounded the payment of the future pupils' train fares. It was suggested