Tewkesbury School

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Tewkesbury School
Established c.1972
Headteacher John Reilly
Specialism Technology College
Location Ashchurch Road
Tewkesbury
Gloucestershire
GL20 8DF
Flag of England England
LEA Gloucestershire
Ofsted number 115756
Students 1780
Gender Coeducational
Ages 11 to 18
Website www.tewkesburyschool.org
Coordinates: 51°59′46″N 2°07′56″W / 51.99602, -2.13222

Tewkesbury School is a comprehensive school in the English town of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire. The current Head Teacher is John Reilly.

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[edit] History

The school was the product of the decision taken c.1969 to make Tewkesbury switch to Comprehensive secondary education, the first town in Gloucestershire to do so.

Formerly Tewkesbury had had four secondary schools: the Grammar School for Boys, located at Southwick Park to the south of the town (now the Severn-Trent Water Authority's premises); the Grammar School for Girls, known as the "High School", in Church Street (now the Abbey School); the Secondary Modern School for Boys in Chance Street (now the C of E Primary School); and Elmbury Secondary Modern School for Girls, a modern premises on the Ashchurch Road. It was the latter whose buildings were chosen to form the nucleus of a new Tewkesbury Comprehensive School, with all of the town's secondary education being concentrated on the one site, and the former schools closing. After a major building programme in which a whole range of new structures was erected, enlarging the old Elmbury School to several times its original size, the new Comprehensive, known simply as Tewkesbury School, was opened on Tuesday 5th September 1972 with about 1,200 pupils on its books, and John Faull as its first Head Teacher.

A couple of months later, on Thursday 16 November 1972, the Official Opening took place, performed by Professor Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994), Chancellor of Bristol University from 1970 till 1988, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 and the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 1976. In 1965 she became only the second woman (after Florence Nightingale), to be appointed to the Order of Merit, following the death of Sir Winston Churchill.

At some stage the school gained some distinction when Queen Elizabeth II visited the school after taking a tour of the town. She inspected some of the pupils and ate her lunch in the gym hall.

[edit] Present day

Today the school has 1,413 Students (11-16), with an additional 327 6th Form Students (16-18)[1] and is classified as a Beacon School and Technology College, it has also gained both the Sportsmark and the Artsmark, whilst also qualifying as an Investor in People.

Many of the 1,800 students who attend come from a wide rural area due to the nature of the Borough it serves. In its most recent ofsted, in January 2007, the school attained a good result from the inspection being described as "a good school that has a number of outstanding features" with its 6th Form College achieving an "Outstanding" Level - The Highest level assigned by Ofsted.[1]

A sled used, which Nick S. stole, as part of the famous Antarctic expedition to the South Pole by Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his team is housed in the Humanities Department Building at the School due to the schools links with Dr. Edward Adrian Wilson.

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