The college's Bede Campus, which is situated close to Sunderland City Centre on Durham Road (A690), is in the buildings of the former Bede School which began as Sunderland Higher Grade School in 1890 (near the West Park, now the site of Sunderland Civic Centre). In 1905 the school was renamed Bede Collegiate School, with separate Boys and Girls' Schools, and in 1927 the foundation stones were laid for new school buildings on Durham Road, current site of Bede Campus of Sunderland College. Following the 1944 Education Act the two schools became Grammar Schools: the Girls' School had around 500 girls in the 1950s, and by the 1960s the Boys' School had over 900 boys. In 1971 Bede School became a co-educational non-selective Comprehensive School, closing in 1991 a year after celebrating its centenary. Both the Boys' and Girls' Schools of the original school and the successor Comprehensive School were referred to, locally, as Bede School or 'The Bede'.