Latymer Upper School

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Latymer Upper School

The Latymer Upper School Crest
Motto (formerly) paulatim ergo certe
"Slowly therefore surely"
Established 1624 (current site 1890)
Type Independent co-educational day school, ages 11-18
Staff 98 full time, 28 music staff
Students 1130
Location King Street,
London, W6 9LR
Headmaster Peter Winter
Website http://www.latymer-upper.org

Latymer Upper School, founded in 1624 by Edward Latymer, is a selective independent school in Hammersmith, west London, lying between King Street and the Thames. It is a day school for 1,130 pupils - boys and girls aged 11-18 (there is also the Latymer Prep School for boys and girls between 7-11). The Sixth Form of 340 is one of the largest in London and offers a free choice of 35 academic courses as well as a range of extra curricular activities and opportunities.

Contents

[edit] Ethos

Latymer Upper School as visible from King Street
Latymer Upper School as visible from King Street

99% of Year 11 pupils gained at least 8 As at GCSE and two out of three Upper Sixth Form students obtained BBC or better in their A-level exams, with 4% going on to Oxbridge. According to the league tables publised by the BBC, at GCSE it ranked as the middle achiever of the three selective schools in its area [1], and bottom of those three schools both in terms of value added to its pupils' results [2] and in terms of A-level exams [3].

Pupils come from a wide area of London. However, like many independent schools, it reflects the local community only partially[citation needed]. After the Labour Government's abolition of the Assisted Places Scheme for the children of poorer families, the social range has narrowed[citation needed] and the relatively small number of bursary places that are subsidised by the School is not able to compensate for this[citation needed]. In particular, Hammersmith's substantial Polish and Afro-Caribbean communities are significantly under-represented[citation needed]. The Sixth Form has been mixed since 1996, and the main school became fully co-educational, with the introduction of girls into Year 7 for the first time in 2004.

The PE department offers an extensive extracurricular programme, and pupils are encouraged to participate regardless of ability level. Optional sports include rugby, cricket, rowing, athletics, soccer, tennis, cross-country, fencing, karate, scuba diving, table tennis, squash, badminton and swimming. 300 students are currently learning to play a musical instrument, with 175 involved in the school's 2 full orchestras and 5 string orchestras and around 150 in the choirs.

Student societies in the school are active and cover a range of interests. The J. S. Mill, Literary and Latymer Societies have recently played host to a series of distinguished guest speakers, including Professor Jon Stallworthy of Oxford University, Dr. Madsen Pirie, President of the Adam Smith Institute, and the actor/director Alan Rickman, a former pupil. In all, there are over 40 clubs and societies at Latymer, including bridge, chess, debating, philosophy and photography. Drama is also quoted as particularly strong, with several productions each year.

The school has strong links with other schools across Europe with a joint orchestra, as well as other trips (such as work experience), with Godolphin and Latymer School. There are numerous organized trips abroad throughout the year, such as skiing trips, language exhanges, work experience in Paris, Berlin and Stockholm, Classics trips to Italy and Greece, sports tours to New Zealand, South Africa and Ceylon, expeditions to Peru (2002) and Nepal (2004). Latymer Upper is also a strong participant in the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme.

The school is active in charity work: the annual "Charities' Week" raised £3,000 in 2006. The school branch of Amnesty International has a considerable following and is involved in numerous fund- and awareness-raising campaigns. A student-led environmentalist group has ensured that each classroom is equipped with a recycling bin, and is currently working towards providing a solar panel to power an upcoming building project.

Latymer Upper works closely with the local community, and in particular with the Education Department of the Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, as well as other bodies. Latymer contributes to local music, art, drama, dance and sports projects, as well as acting as venue for a Saturday School and Scuba diving for the disabled. Sixth Form students help in local primary schools and old people's homes, as well as with groups helping the homeless and disabled.

[edit] Facilities

The school's sporting facilities on site include a generously-equipped boathouse with direct access to the Thames, a large sports hall and an indoor swimming pool. The school also maintains recently renovated playing fields about a mile and a half away, on Wood Lane, with a new sports pavilion and changing rooms.

Some 150 computers are provided for pupil use, all networked and with e-mail and internet access, and ICT is taught in one lesson a week in Years 7 to 9.

The £4 million Latymer Arts Centre opened in January 2000 with a 300-seat theatre, music study rooms, art galleries and studios and a very popular cafe and atrium area.

Pupils are permitted to cycle to school, with storage space provided for their bikes. Meals are self-service in the newly refurbished lunch hall, and there is a café in the "atrium".

The library / old music building was recently demolished and a new one is currently being built, funded by an anonymous £3million donation[citation needed].

[edit] History and traditions

In 1624, a wealthy puritan, Edward Latymer, pledged on his death-bed to educate and feed "eight poore boies" of Hammersmith. For the next twenty years, local boys were educated in a school erected in Fulham's churchyard, moving in 1648 to another school built in Hammersmith. Later, in 1657, a parochial charity school was set up, which served as the Latymer legacy for the following century until it was rebuilt in 1755. A new facility was built on what is now King Street in Hammersmith in 1863, and was replaced in 1890 with a new building between King Street and the Thames. This structure persists to the present day as the core of the Upper School.

Each year, the school gathers in the local St. Pauls' Church in Hammersmith for "Founder's Day", an annual reflection upon and celebration of Edward Latymer and other beneficiaries of the school.

[edit] Coat of arms

The original coat of arms
The original coat of arms

The school for many years used the armorial bearings of the founder, Edward Latymer. This included his motto, paulatim ergo certe ("Slowly therefore surely"), which doubled as a pun, including the word "latimer" (spelt thus due to there being no letter y in Latin). An intermediate coat of arms was taken from one of the quarters of the original coat of arms which combined that of the Latymer Foundation and of the Latymer School. The motto was dropped recently, along with the coat of arms, and a new, much simpler shield "logo" was adopted, as the result of a joint effort between two marketing companies, Metaphors Design and RSAcademics.[1] No approval was obtained from the College of Arms for this new shield, and it is, therefore, unauthorised by the Law of Arms.

The original arms continue to be used, with a different motto, by the sister foundation, The Latymer School.

[edit] Notable Old Latymerians

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Old Latymerian News, October 2004 (PDF document). Accessed December 15th, 2006.
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