Arnold Hill Comprehensive School

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Arnold Hill Comprehensive School
Established {{{established}}}
School type State
Headteacher Robin K Fugill
Location Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom
Students 1800 (approx.)


Arnold Hill Comprehensive School is a mixed state school in the county of Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands. It teaches children from 11 to 18 - Years 7-13. It is located in Arnold but it serves children from various nearby areas including Killisick, Daybrook, Woodthorpe, Mapperley and Sherwood. It is split into two sites ("Main School" and "Lower School") and has 1700 pupils and 100 teachers - one of the largest comprehensive schools in Nottinghamshire. The headteacher is Robin K Fugill.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Foundation - Comprehensive 1959 - 1975

Arnold High School (real name was 'County High School, Arnold', but everyone called it 'Arnold High'), which became Arnold Hill Comprehensive in 1975.

The two separate schools that the comprehensive was (the County and the Girls -upper school County, Lower was Girls) were opened in 1959 by the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 - 1964). Built of pre-fabricated building materials which surprisingly still stand (just!), marked the schools out as amongst the most modern around.

[edit] 2004 Fire

In September 2004 the school was forced to close for several days when a large fire destroyed 16 of the recently refurbished classrooms in the Lower School building.[1] The school quickly allowed sixth formers and GCSE pupils (Years 10 & 11) to return, but the reduced number of classrooms - smoke and structural damage meant that the entire Lower School building was uninhabitable, except the reception and hall area - prohibited pupils from years 7, 8 & 9 from returning for several weeks. Their return was delayed and rescheduled several times because of delays in the construction of the Portakabins, but eventually they were returned to school. The large array of Portakabin buildings are known officially as "The Village".

[edit] The Village

"The Village" was home to the English and Humanities Departments and also Lower School Resources (Library, IT Suite) during the rebuild of lower school following the fire and provided comfortable accommodation with air conditioning, and IT ports in every room. The "Village" was last used by pupils on Tuesday 4th April 2006, after which date the Humanities, and English departments began the move to the newly re-built Lower School ready to begin classes after the Easter Break on the 24th April 2006. To accommodate this move pupils in years 7, 8 & 10 began their Easter Holiday early, with the Tuesday being their last day in school, the holiday was also extended the other side of Easter with pupils in these years returning on Wednesday 26th April 2006. Years 9 and 11 remained in school for the normal period due to the proximity of SAT's and GCSE exams. A candlelit mock-funeral service was held and attended by over 500 pupils and staff.

[edit] Pantomime

The School's Sixth Form put on a Pantomime each year during the last week of term before the Christmas holidays. This is a showcase of the various "talents" of the group, and traditionally is based more around dances and bizarre comedy skits than the actual story itself. There is also the obligatory "YMCA" dance sequence and inevitable "celebrity" appearances, the most notable being in 2003, when Adam Gray narrated the pantomime as Bo' Selecta's Craig David, followed a year later by science teacher Mr Parish as Steve Irwin.

[edit] References

  1. ^ BBC:"Fire closes comprehensive school"