Hitchin Boys' School

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Hitchin Boys' School is a specialist technology college in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England. It educates boys aged between 11 and 18. The school currently has around 1000 pupils. The school is part of a consortium for sixth form teaching with other schools in the town whereby the classes are mixed with the pupils from Hitchin Girls' School and the Priory School.

1 Tradition
2 History
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Tradition

As with many former grammar schools, there are (and were) several traditions at Hitchin Boys' School that have been discontinued or continue to this day.

Founders' Day, normally on the 1st of July, was originally a large ceremony. All of the students would march down to St Mary's Church, accompanied by their teachers, and would engage in a large service. Nowadays only the Sixth Form and Year 11 students continue this tradition. Founders' Day also signalled the arrival of the School's Swimming Competition. This was terminated though.

The School Sports Day was also a regularly popular attraction at the school. Normally held on a Wednesday in June, it invited parents to compete as well as creating great competition between the school's houses. After a gap year as an athletic competition run by the P.E. Department due to the construction of the Sixth Form Block in 2005, it returned during the revival of the School's "Activity Week" in June 2006.

[edit] History

Hitchin Boys' School was founded in 1639 by John Mattock. The school has been based on its present site since 1889 and was a grammar school until 1974 when it became a comprehensive school. Its current headmaster is Keith Wadsworth.

The school's present site has expanded continously since its establishment. It began in 1889 as a building known as the 'Schoolhouse', a Dining Hall (now the School's Library), the Headmaster's Office (part of the present-day Reception) and the School Hall. The large present-day complex was not established until 1930, as can be determined by a close inspection at the top (or bottom) of the complex's drains. In the late 1980's the local building company Hunting Gate built a new building onto the main School complex that held a new I.T. suite for graphics lessons, a small cookery classroom (for the Food Technology GCSE) and a large Music classroom, as well as several smaller practice rooms for individual student lessons.

There have been also been changes to the outside of the school. In the 1960's a Memorial Pavilion was established honouring the dead of the Second World War. In the 1970's the Lower School Block was created, easing the crush of students that had to come out of the main School complex after registration. This comprised of six classrooms, a small staff room (now disused) and a office for the newly-created job of Head of Lower School. In the 1990's the School built a new Sports Centre next to the Lower School Block. It also became a local Sports Centre for Hitchin and Hertfordshire, allowing for fitness, badminton, basketball and volleyball sessions among other sports. Conferences are also allowed in the Centre's theory classrooms as well as small individual rooms.

In the late 1980's the School's hockey/cricket pitch (but not the rugby pitch on the hill) on the top of the grounds (near Wilshere Dacre School, and which was unreliable, particularly for the hockey players) was converted into an all-weather pitch for the benefit of hockey, complete with floodlights and large amounts of grit. Only school P.E. lessons of cricket are played on the pitch, which also caters for football.

In 2003 construction started on the creation of a Sixth Form Centre (previously the Sixth Form had been forced to establish base in the former School Stables). It was completed in the summer of 2005 and took its first intake of Sixth Formers in September 2005.