JCB concedes that parents found the academy difficult to gauge at first.
Principal Jim Wade said: "It's a big leap of faith for parents to entrust their children to a new concept in learning.
"We are the first university technical college to be set up in the country and so there is no previous record to judge us by.
"Many teenagers wouldn't want to give up their friends and school at 14 to come here, but we discovered that we were over-subscribed from the outset because people appreciated the different type of education we were offering."
Student James Gratton, aged 14, previously attended Derby Moor Community Sports College, near Derby.
He said: "I had thought about engineering but would never have been able to spend time doing it in the same way at an ordinary school, where pupils are pursuing many different subjects.
"The school is organised and run like a business and, although it is a long day, we don't have to take homework with us at night."
On average, classes have no more than 20 pupils and each pupil is assigned to a mentor group, which have a maximum of 14 pupils in each.
Pupils are allocated to house teams when they join the academy – Bamford, Royce or Arkwright – and points are given throughout the year for good behaviour, attendance, excellence in work and a range of sporting endeavours.
Harriet Chiles, aged 14, of Ashbourne, said: "It's very good here and ideal for me because I want to be an engineer.
"My father owns an engineering company and so I suppose engineering is in my blood."
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