John Port School

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For persons with the same name, see John Port.

John Port School
Motto	The Opportunity to succeed
Established	1957
Type	Comprehensive
Headteacher	Mr M Crane
Specialism	Technology College
Location	Etwall Derby Derbyshire DE65 6LU England
LEA	Derbyshire
Ofsted number	112990
Students	2070
Gender	Coeducational
Ages	11 to 18
School colours	Oxford Blue
Website	http://www.johnport.derbyshire.sch.uk/
Coordinates: 52°53′04″N 1°36′10″W / 52.88443, -1.60266

John Port Specialist Technology College^[1] is a very large comprehensive school, set in semi-rural Derbyshire, in the pleasant village of Etwall. With the current number of students around the 2100 mark it puts John Port as the largest secondary school in the county, and the 4th largest nationally^{[citation needed]}. Its current Headmaster is Mr Michael Crane MA.

John Port is a mixed school, with the student age range between 11 and 16, and with the John Port 6th Form taking students from the ages of 16 to 18. However, even with the large size of the school a very real sense of community is maintained through each year being split into 12 forms. A child on entry to the school is joins a form into which they stay until they leave in Year 11. Each form generally has the same personal tutor that is there for and follows their form through their years at JP. Each year also has a Head of Year and Deputy, to whom authority of the year is given to.

There are approximately 140 full time and temporary members of the teaching staff.

[edit] History

The school is on the site of a demolished country manor, Etwall Hall, traditionally of the Port family who were the wealthy landowners of the parish ^[2]. In 1952, the Derbyshire County Council bought Etwall Hall from Reg Parnell, the famous racing car driver. The hall had been used during the Second World War by the Army, first as a petrol depot and later as an equipment supply centre and been left in a somewhat dilapidated state. After its demolition a secondary modern and a secondary grammar school were built on the site. In 1959, they were amalgamated to form the John Port School that occupies the site today.

The name of the Port family, who lived at the hall, has been associated with Etwall since the 15th century. The family’s most famous son, Sir John Port, was the founder of the nearby Repton School and committed to the furthering of education for young men in the village. It therefore seemed entirely appropriate that the new school was named after him.

[edit] School site

The large attractive site has an open feel, being a 'green' campus with plenty of well maintained open spaces between the individual teaching facilities. The centre of the site is focussed around the lake, one of the original fishing lakes that were in the grounds of the Etwall Hall.

The site is also home to the Etwall leisure Centre, with public access down the main drive. The Leisure Centre is to be replaced by new state of the art facilities, with planning permission anticipated to be given in the very near future. The new facilities will include a new 6 lane swimming pool, squash courts, fitness suit and large sports hall. Building work is expected to begin in the new school year 2007/08.

Teaching facilities are spread across the site, with each faculty having a separate building. The buildings (apart from Flamsteed which is named after a famous local scientist John Flamsteed) are each named after settlements and features in Derbyshire and the Peak District (Ilam being in Staffordshire but with links to the Port family), named from A to I alphabetically, in chronological order of when they were first built. This system gives order to classroom numbering and also a 'short name for each block, ie, 'A12' is the twelfth classroom in 'A' block (Ashbourne). The original school started with 'A' and 'B' blocks, and has expanded from there. The faculties and corresponding blocks are as follows:

• Ashbourne - Mathematics
• Bakewell - Modern Foreign Languages, ICT
• Chatsworth - English, Economics, Politics, Sociology, Psychology, Business studies
• Derwent - Design Technology, Food Technology, Child studies
• Edale - Humanities (Geography, History, RE)
• Flamsteed - Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics)
• Glossop - 6th Form Centre of higher education
• Hathersage - Expressive arts (Art, Drama, Music, Dace, Textiles, Theater studies)
• Ilam - temporary building, various subjects.

The school Resources Centre is situated centrally on the site, occupying most of the ground floor of 'B' block. It has a full computer suite and a library stocked with 14,000 books on all subjects taught at the school, and aimed at 11-18 year old readers. It is staffed by a professionally qualified Chartered Librarian and assistant, to ensure that it is always well maintained and stocked to the needs of the student base.

There are two canteen dining halls on the site, one each in 'A' and 'C' blocks. These serve hot lunches and also cater for morning break, along with the 'Lite Bite' situated in A-Block, which serves sandwiches, drinks and snacks at both lunch and break.

The two gymnasiums ('A' block) and ('C' block) used by both boys and girls in different lessons will have some of their use transferred to the new sports and leisure centre on completion. The future of these facilities has not been disclosed past 2010.

The central location of 'E' block also houses the student welfare offices. This includes a local Conexxions office on site and the nurses office. Student support was moved to 'E' block, from being spread over the site, on this newest block's completion in September 2006.

More rooms have been added to the ground floor of the Sixth Form ('G') block during building work in 2007.

[edit] Notable students

• David Harrison RAF officer

[edit] Catchment area

The size of the school means that it has a very large catchment area, covering 31 parishes of South Derbyshire.

Ash | Barton Blount | Bearwardcote | Boylestone | Burnaston | Church Broughton | Dalbury Lees | Egginton | Etwall | Findern | Foremark | Foston | Hatton | Hilton | Hoon | Marston on Dove | Mickleover | Newton Solney | Osleston | Radbourne | Repton | Rolleston | Scropton | Stenson | Streton | Sutton on the Hill | Thurvaston | Trusley | Twyford | Tutbury | Willington

[edit] References