Queensbury Upper School

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Queensbury Upper School
Established	1972
Type	Comprehensive foundation school
Headteacher	Mr. Nigel Hill
Specialism	Technology College
Location	Langdale Road Dunstable Bedfordshire LU6 3BU England
LEA	Bedfordshire
Ofsted number	109704
Students	1,174^[1]
Gender	Mixed
Ages	13 to 18
Website	http://www.qusonline.com/
Coordinates: 51°52′42″N 0°31′42″W / 51.87822, -0.52824

Queensbury Upper School is an upper school in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England.

1 History
2 Location
3 The site
4 Houses
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

Kingsbury Technical College for Boys (a mixed-sex grammar school) and Queen Eleanor's School for Girls were merged in 1972 to form Queensbury Upper School, when Bedfordshire changed from a two-tier school system to a three-tier system.

Queensbury was the second Grant-maintained school. The school had been flagged for closure but the community, including the local MP, David Madel, fought to keep it open and took advantage of the introduction of the grant-maintained system introduced in 1988. Grant-maintained schools were abolished in 1998, and Queensbury converted to a Foundation School. The ten years as a Grant-maintained school had seen it increase in popularity from very low enrollment numbers (as the school was due to close) to being heavily oversubscribed.

The school takes students from 13 to 18 and includes a Sixth Form.

The current head teacher is Mr. Nigel Hill.

[edit] Location

Queensbury is surrounded by three roads, Canesworde Road, Langdale Road and Hilton Avenue (Most of the roads located in this area are named after places in the Lake District). It is in South West Dunstable, but takes children from across Dunstable and the surrounding villages.

[edit] The site

Because the school used to be two separate schools, the buildings are quite a distant apart. There are two entrances from different sides of the site. On Langdale Road, there is the entrance to East building (the former Queen Eleanor's), and opposite Meadway there is an entrance to West building (via. Canesworde Road). The most recent addition to the school was 'Central' building in 1999.

Due to the site previously being two separate schools, there is some duplication in rooms across the school. There are, for instance, two gyms, main halls and canteens. Until the completion of Central building there were also two staff rooms; one per building.

[edit] Houses

Queensbury uses a 'house' system to encourage teamwork and competition within the school, with awards and points being given to houses for various events. Each form class is assigned to a house, designated by a letter in the class name and coloured stripes through their tie. The houses and colours are shown below. Each house is named after a road around the school.