Oxted School
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Oxted School is a mixed comprehensive secondary school in the town of Oxted, Surrey It was opened in 1929 as the first mixed grammar school in Surrey and now has over 2000 pupils aged 11-18 (Years 7-13). The current headteacher is Mrs Margaret Hawley, who was appointed in 2000 replacing Mr Roger Coles who had held the position since 1981. She is the first female headteacher of the school.
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[edit] History
Oxted County School (as named until 1999) was built in 1929 at the cost of £35,000. In its first term it had only 22 pupils but this increased to 120 after two years. It was originally designed to grow to 250 pupils. Now, in 2006 it has well in excess of 2000 pupils and is an integral part of the local community.
The school was the first mixed grammar school in Surrey when it opened. The two sexes were strictly segregated and they had separate staircases, playgrounds and had to sit at separate sides of the classroom in lessons. As a punishment, girls would have to write lines and boys were caned by the headmaster.
Nowadays the school does not segregate the sexes in any way, apart from PE lessons in year 9 and 10.
[edit] Reputation and Success
The school enjoys a very good reputation. It is considered one of the best state secondary schools in Surrey and over 95% of its students receive 5 GCSEs grade C and above.
Most of the 400 Sixth form go on to university and about 2-4 people earn a place at an Oxbridge university each year.
[edit] Buildings
The school comprises of many buildings.
1. The original building of 1929
2. The 1951 extension of the original building
3. The PE Block (1960s)
4. The Art Block (1987)
5. The Drama Studio (1991)
6. The Science Block (1993)
7. The Design and Technology Block (1997)
8. The Meridian Building (1999/2000). This replaced the destroyed 1960s Humanities Block, see below.
9. A few hut classrooms constructed over the years
[edit] The Great Fire of 1998
On the 16th August 1998 former students of the school set fire to the Humanities Block. This contained 22 classrooms, library, canteen, thousands of books and 125 computers. Everything was destroyed. It took 65 firemen 4 hours to subdue the blaze, fortunately nobody was hurt.
The school reopened as usual in the September with temporary hut classrooms. These were nicknamed "The Village" and the students were nicknamed "The Village People". Some of these huts still remain.
The replacement building is called The Meridian Building as The Greenwich Meridian runs directly through it. It contains 24 classrooms, library and canteen. It opened officially in April 2000.
