Queen Elizabeth's High School

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**Queen Elizabeth's High School**

Location	Morton Terrace, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, UK
Established	1589
Head:	Mr D.J. Smart
Students	ca 4180
Website	http://www.qehs.lincs.sch.uk
School Badge

Queen Elizabeth's High School is an 11-18 co-educational grammar school, based in Gainsborough in northern Lincolnshire. The school is selective; Year 6 pupils must sit and pass the Eleven Plus exam prior to entry. The school is a centre for sitting the exam.

1 History
2 School Administration and Structure
3 Music and Drama at the School
4 Languages at the school
5 Sixth-Form Centre
6 Sport and other Extra-Curricular Activities
7 For the future
8 Notable Old Elizabethans
9 See also
10 External links

[edit] History

Although the details are unclear, Gainsborough appears to have had a small grammar school from the 15th century provided by the local clergy, where possibly several of the Pilgrim Fathers received their early education. Queen Elizabeth's High School formally originates however in 1589, when Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to Sir Robert Somerscale in order to establish Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School for boys, with the express purpose of providing an education in the Classics and Divinity for the sons of the emerging middle class in the town. Gainsborough High School, a grammar school for girls, was founded in 1920. During the 1940s both schools re-situated to the present Morton Terrace site, on which the local technical college was also based. Under the Tripartite System they became fully state grammar schools, having been fee-paying before then. The schools merged to form the current setup of QEHS in 1983.

The school performs well and is respected in the area. Its AS and A2 performance scores 396.5 (the national average is 277.6). At GCSE, the value added score is 1024.5 and national average is 994.1. (From BBC League Tables) Many pupils go on to Russell Group Universities for further study.

More recently, the headmaster of 11 years, Mr. John Child MA (Cantab.), resigned his position to give way to the current head, in his first year, Mr. David Smart.

[edit] School Administration and Structure

Each year, from 7 to 11, has approx 180 students and each year is divided into 6 forms (the Sixth Form years generally contain approximately 140 students and are divided into eight smaller forms). There are four houses at the school, Frobisher, Raleigh, Grenville and Drake, named after notable explorers during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

House Admin
	Drake	Frobisher	Grenville	Raleigh
House's Colour	Blue	Yellow	Green	Red
Head of House	Mr C. Frost	Ms G. Wilkinson	Mr G. Harrison	Mr T. Johnson

The houses compete in a closely-fought competition throughout each school year, taking part in a series of events ranging from cricket and football through to debating and drama. The current holders of the inter-house championship are Drake house. Students can win colours for representing house and school in events.

The school contains approximately 1180 students from over a wide area including Northern Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire. There are roughly 80 teaching staff and many support staff.

[edit] Music and Drama at the School

Members of Queen Elizabeth's High School and Gainsborough Choral Society perform in an annual Christmas carol concert, "Carols for All." Philip Ainsworth conducts.

The school has many musical groups, run by the members of Music staff, Philip Ainsworth and Mrs. J. Stockdale, with the school's various instrumental teachers. The school has a junior, senior and swing band, a school orchestra, a string ensemble and chamber-sized brass groups, including a large brass group, a senior brass group, a horn group (and this year, a senior horn group) and a Year 9 brass group (of 5 students, who performed without a conductor).

The school runs basic music education for years 7 - 9 and students may then elect to take GCSE in Music in Years 10 and 11. Students can then, according to their GCSE results, take it to AS in Year 12 and then convert to A2 in Year 13. Results for Music at A-Level and GCSE tend to be high.

Drama is also strong at QEHS- recent productions have included West Side Story and The Importance of Being Earnest amongst others.

[edit] Languages at the school

Similarly to music, students chose their own preferences with language. All students in year 7 take 3 periods of French and German and (at present) 1 period of Latin a week. At the end of year 7, students must drop one of these subjects. They then continue through to year 9 with the chosen two. They must then take a GCSE in either French or German (of their remaining two) and are given the choice to take Latin at GCSE, providing the student has taken it into year 9. Students may take either French or German at A-Level, but the school doesn't offer Latin A-Level owing to a lack of resources, though Classical Civilisation can be taken as an A-Level, which includes sections of what would be taught on the Latin A-Level course.

With the school announcing a specialism in Languages at the same time as the Latin teacher is due to retire, Latin is due to be phased out of the curriculum in favour of Spanish over the next academic year.

[edit] Sixth-Form Centre

The school's sixth-form has its own building situated at the south of the school campus, featuring a large main common room, two smaller rooms (one of which is the Councillor Mrs Jean Bassett Room), a large room with computer facilities, and two teaching rooms (81 and 82). Teachers Mr. N. Dawson, Mr S. Hopkinson and Dr. M. Fraser have offices in this centre also. Outside the building is a car park for the use of sixth-form students and teaching staff. Most sixth form lessons take place in regular classrooms elsewhere in the school, however several rooms (notably 57, 67, 68, 75, 81, 82) are set aside exclusively for sixth form teaching and other uses.

[edit] Sport and other Extra-Curricular Activities

QEHS has a thriving sporting calender, with football, rugby, cricket and athletics being the main boys sports, and hockey, netball, tennis and athletics being the main girls sports. From Year 10, these choices can also include squash, badminton and golf amongst others.

Sporting facilities are considered to be very good at QEHS, with four cricket pitches, two hockey pitches, two rugby pitches and three football pitches available. Several long-jump pits and tennis courts are also on site. The school has the use of the local public swimming baths and squash courts on the Avenue in Gainsborough.

Inter-school matches are played against other grammar schools in Lincolnshire, and a few public schools and secondary modern schools. In recent years cricket has proved particularly successful at QEHS, with several sides proving victorious in local competitions. Several Elizabethans have also been active at county level, including Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.

Each Christmas a team of Old Elizabethans plays the 1st XI in a challenge match, usually resulting in a tight and entertaining match.

Pupils are encouraged to serve the community, and several do volunteer work in the local area. Many Sixth-Formers have taken part in Young Enterprise and this has proved another area in which the school has succeded. The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme has similarly thrived.

QEHS has built up an excellent reputation locally for debating, with teams winning several competitions locally and nationally, including the Youth Speaks Competition.

[edit] For the future

Mr. Smart, the new head, will be entering the school for application of specialist status in Music and Languages, with a hope that this will become effective in 2010. Not all members of the student body and their parents were happy with this decision, however, but it has been generally agreed among PTA members and staff that Music and Languages would be a good move for specialism for the school.