William Ellis School

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William Ellis School Language College is a United Kingdom secondary comprehensive school for boys in Highgate, London.

William Ellis was a public-spirited businessman who, in the mid-nineteenth century, founded a number of schools, and inspired many teachers to promote his educational ideas. He wanted children to be taught "useful" subjects like science (including 'Social Science'), and to develop the faculty of reason; this in contrast to the rote learning of religious tracts, ancient languages and history which characterised what was offered by so many schools at the time. William Ellis School, the only one of these schools remaining, was established in 1862 at Gospel Oak, and re-organised in 1889 as a boys' secondary school.

In 1937 the School moved to its present site in Highgate, backing on to Parliament Hill Fields. Much ingenuity has gone into extending and converting the building to provide the additional classrooms and specialist accommodation required: first by the post-war grammar school's large sixth form, and again in more recent years to provide better facilities for the National Curriculum and for Information Technology. The School became fully comprehensive in the years after 1978. From 1990 the School gained greater autonomy under the Local Management of Schools scheme, and spends a devolved budget of over 13 million per year for its 1000 pupils. In 1997 the school earned Language College status under the Specialist School Scheme. ^[1]

William Ellis School has a joint Sixth Form with the adjacent Parliament Hill Girls School, and all classes are coeducational. Together with La Sainte Union Catholic Secondary School and Acland Burghley School they make up the "La Swap" consortium for 16–19 education, educating around 1000 students altogether.