| Established | 1896 |
|---|---|
| Type | Academy |
| Headmaster | Andrew Davies |
| Chair of Governors | C J Oldham |
| Specialism | Technology |
| Location | Alexandra Park Bath BA2 4RE England |
| Local authority | Bath and North East Somerset Council |
| DfE URN | 136520 |
| Ofsted | Reports |
| Students | 1,145 |
| Gender | Boys (Coeducational sixth form) |
| Ages | 11–18 |
| Colours | |
| Publication | The Torch |
| Former name | City of Bath Boys' School |
| Website | www.beechencliff.org.uk |
Beechen Cliff School is a boys' secondary school in Bath, Somerset, England. Founded in 1896, it has 1,145 students aged 11 to 18.
There are around 830 boys in years 7 to 11 and a co-educational sixth form of over 200 students. The school is located just south of the city centre near Alexandra Park, up a hill from Bear Flat on the A367, a major route from the south of the city into Bath.
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The school began in 1896 as Bath City Secondary School in the Guildhall.[1][2]
It moved from the Guildhall Technical College[3] to its present site at Beechen Cliff in 1932 when it was renamed the City of Bath Boys' School.
It changed to its present name in 1970 when the City of Bath reorganised secondary education. The grammar school was amalgamated with Oldfield Boys' School, a local secondary modern school originally founded in 1903, to form a comprehensive school.
On 7 August 1988, on a school climbing expedition in the Briançon region of the French Alps, the 57-year-old headmaster Donald Stephens fell 300 feet (91 m) to his death. Fifteen pupils and three members of staff were on the expedition, training for a walk up Mount Kenya, and witnessed the tragic incident. A library has been established in his memory.
A review of Bath secondary provision by Avon County Council in the 1980s led to proposals for the school to be closed and replaced with a sixth form college on the same site serving the whole city. Partisans of the school, however, took advantage of new legislation to obtain grant-maintained status for the school, taking it out of local authority control, which the then Government permitted despite a policy that schools would not be allowed to use grant-maintained (GM) status as a way of avoiding closure. Avon County Council took the school to the High Court in February 1990, to prevent it gaining GM status so sustaining its Bath schools reorganisation plan, and on 24 February Mr Justice Hutchison ruled in favour of the council, and asked the Secretary of State to reconsider his decision. On 30 March, Secretary of State for Education and Science, John MacGregor, overruled the court's decision and said the school could be GM funded. In a vote, 55% of parents wanted to be GM funded.[4]
At an appeal at the High Court on 15 May, Lord Justice Mustill backed John MacGregor's decision and Avon County Council lost its appeal to the school going GM funded. The Director of Education at Avon, Dr Christopher Saville, said he was 'very disappointed'.
Beechen Cliff School acquired the specialist school status of Technology College in 1997, and with the demise of grant-maintained status became a Foundation school with similar characteristics.
The school uniform consists of a blazer, trousers, shirt and a blue, red and yellow striped tie.