Ripley St. Thomas C of E High School

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Ripley St. Thomas C. of E. High School
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Ripley St. Thomas Church of England High School in the city of Lancaster in the north west of England.

Ripley is a mixed Church of England High School and has around 1400 pupils between 11 and 18 years old.

[edit] History

The school started life as Ripley Hospital, founded by Julia, wife of Thomas Ripley, a Liverpool merchant who had benefitted enormously from the slave trade. To make up for that past, Ripley was started as an orphanage for local disadvantadged children.

On the 3rd November 1864, it was designated to educate an equal number of boys and girls - 300 in total - providing they lived within either 15 miles of Lancaster Priory or 7 miles of Liverpool Cathedral.

The main school building, originally costing £30,000, included a first-class gym, woodwork and metalwork rooms, a domestic school for girls, and heated swimming-pool, four courts for playing fives and enough full-sized football pitches to allow 150 boys to play at the same time. A farm of some 40 acres kept the school supplied with home produced meat, milk and poultry, and a vast kitchen garden gave a constant supply of fresh vegetables. This school was well in advance of its time.

The work of the Hospital continued until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, when the building was requisitioned by the army. The pupils then moved out to Capernwray Hall (seen here to the left). They expected to return at the end of the War, but the government requisitioned Ripley for another three years for use as an emergency Teachers' Training College. By then, it was realised that the need for an endowed orphanage was much reduced. State pensions allowed more one-parent families to stay together, and the fashion had moved away from institutional units.

After the trainee teachers left, the building became a National School, then a boys' secondary modern school until 1966 when Ripley Boys' and St. Thomas Girls' Schools amalgamated to become Ripley St. Thomas Church of England School.

In September, 1996, Ripley was designated a Language College. Whilst not changing in any way its status as a Voluntary Aided Church School, this does enable the school to develop its language facilities and so become a 'Centre of Excellence' for modern languages, including French, German, Spanish and Japanese.

Today, 1600 boys and girls are educated at the school, many of whom continue to the age of 18 years and go on to complete university degree courses.

Recent additions include two new science laboratories, an English/Geography block, History/Business Studies block, and up-graded foreign languages and technology facilities. The school site is spacious and contains some exceptional features, including good sports facilities, the school farm, plant centre, walled garden and fine mature trees. Ripley is a very popular school with a long tradition of high academic and sporting achievement. It is often featured in the national press as one of the best State Schools in the country. Its results in external tests and examinations at Key Stage 3, GCSE and Advanced Level, and its value-added performance, places the school within the top 10% of secondary schools nationally.

[edit] Information

The current Headmistress is Mrs. Liz Nicholls

The school's uniform for years 7-11 consists of grey trousers for boys and grey skirt or black trousers for girls, black shoes, white shirt/blouse and navy blue blazer (with school logo). The tie is diagonally striped black and red. For sixth form (year 12 and 13)boys wear their own choice of shirt and tie, tailored trousers and black shoes. Girls have a more liberal choice of dress, strictly jeans, trainers and strapless/sleeveless tops.