| Established | 1911 |
|---|---|
| Type | Community school |
| Headteacher | Paul Gamble |
| Specialism | Sports |
| Location | Gayton Road Harrow Middlesex HA1 2JG England |
| Local authority | Harrow |
| DfE URN | 102242 |
| Ofsted | Reports |
| Students | 701 |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Ages | 12–16 |
| Website | Harrow High School |
Harrow High School is a state secondary school in the London Borough of Harrow in the north-west of London. The headteacher is Paul Gamble. The school is a specialist Sports College. It is not to be confused with the independent school Harrow School, situated nearby at Harrow on the Hill.
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The site was formerly the home of Harrow County School for Boys. In 1975, when the London Borough of Harrow adopted a comprehensive system of education, the school became known as Gayton High School, an all boys school.
Gayton High School was the last school in Harrow to become comprehensive in September 1975. Later, in 1998, the school became coeducational and changed its name to Harrow High School, a specialist Sports College. The name "Harrow High School" had belonged to an independent school which, until its closure in the late 1980s, occupied a site across the road on Gayton Road.
The school was formerly a boys’ school, only becoming co-educational in 1998, and recently completed its first year as a specialist Sports College. It has gained a number of national awards for the quality of its provision, including the Artsmark Gold award (2003), Sportsmark award (2002), Investors in People (1999) and Careers Education and Guidance award (1996).
It is situated close to the University of Westminster Harrow Campus.
Pupils are drawn from, in and around Harrow, though a significant minority travel long distances from areas such as Brent, and they reflect an extensive range of social, ethnic and cultural mix. The school is nondenominational and caters for a number of different religious groups. About one quarter of the pupils are from Asian or Asian British-Indian backgrounds and white British pupils make up about another quarter. Pupils from other ethnic groups are also significantly represented and include about one in five who are refugees and a small number of Traveller children. Over half of the pupils do not have English as their first language, which is much higher than average, and sixty five of these are at an early stage of learning English. A large minority of pupils come from homes that are economically and socially disadvantaged.
Over 30 per cent of pupils receive free school meals, which is above the national average, and the numbers of pupils that join or leave the school midway through the year is high. Pupils’ attainment on entry represents the full range of abilities. Mostly it is below average, but literacy and numeracy skills are very low. About a quarter of the pupils are identified as having special educational needs and twenty of these have a high level of learning difficulty. These proportions are above the average for most secondary schools.
| School | A*-C Pass Rate 2008 |
A*-C Pass Rate 2009 |
A*-C Pass Rate 2010 |
English Baccalaureate Pass Rate 2010 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harrow High School | 52% | 43% | 31% | 5% |
| Average for London Borough of Harrow | 57.7% | 60.8% | 60.7% | 22.6% |
| Average for England | 47.6% | 50.7% | 60.7% | 15.1% |
The school is often thought to be below average. This is what Ofsted thought of the school's characteristics:
"Harrow High School is a comprehensive community school for boys and girls aged 12-16 years (Years 8 to 11). It is smaller than most secondary schools with 719 pupils and in all year groups boys significantly outnumber girls".