| Motto | Counting in Ones |
|---|---|
| Established | 1897 |
| Type | Sixth form college |
| Principal | Neil Hopkins |
| Location | Owens Road Winchester Hampshire SO22 6RX England |
| Local authority | Hampshire |
| DfE URN | 130708 |
| Ofsted | Reports |
| Students | c.2700 |
| Ages | 16–18 |
| Publication | The Buzz |
| Website | PSC |
Peter Symonds College is a sixth form college in Winchester, Hampshire, in the south of England. It is one of the largest sixth form colleges in Britain.
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It has some 3250 students aged 16–18 mainly from central Hampshire but also teenagers from the British Forces who live on campus in one of the two boarding houses and mostly come from Germany, Cyprus and the Falkland Islands.
The college was founded as a boys' grammar school in 1897 and became a coeducational 16-19 college in 1974, although its roots go back to charities established in the 16th century at the bequest of Peter Symonds, a wealthy merchant. From 1944 it was a voluntary controlled grammar school.
The school, along with the Winchester County Girls' High School, also a grammar school, became a comprehensive in 1974, taking until 1978.
In the late 1990s or early 2000s, for reasons unknown (but possibly because of the difficulty students and correspondents had in spelling the College's name correctly), the College dropped the possessive apostrophe from its founder's name in its official title, and is now known as Peter Symonds College.
In 2004, the John Shields Building was unveiled, providing classrooms for the computing, psychology and environmental science departments. Also in that year the Varley Sports Café was rebuilt.
The £4.2M Ashurst Learning Resources Centre was completed in the spring of 2007. Ashurst contains five computer suites, housing over 170 computers (three suites double as classrooms, but remain open access when not in use), a vast library and large silent study areas.
The present principal, Neil Hopkins is now the only principal not to have a building in the college named after him, and instead the landfill site in front of the Northbrook building which was demolished has been affectionately called Hopkins' Hump.
The school previously operated a number of boarding houses. The houses (School House, Wyke Lodge and Kelso) brought in a welcome variety of boys from far-flung corners of the world (outposts of Empire and Armed Forces bases) to spice up the – largely insular – intake of 11+ pupils from Winchester.
Wyke Lodge is now the Environmental Studies block and Kelso is now the Music department. School House is still used for boarding (30 students), along with the newly built Falkland Lodge (47 students). Both male and female students are accommodated. The construction of Falkland Lodge was funded by the government of the Falkland Islands as a boarding house so that students from the islands can study at the college.
In 2009 Peter Symonds was placed sixth in The Times top 50 state sixth forms. In the same year the college was ranked 85th in the country (only including institutions with at least 30 exam entrants) based on Average Points Score.[1]
The college produces an online magazine named "The BUZZ", written and edited by students, which replaced "Converse" in 2008.[2] There is also a student produced college radio station, 7Radio, founded by James Silsbury and Josh Lewkowicz on the 14th Feb 2007. The '7' or 'Seven' of 7Radio, as well as relating to broadcasting 7 days a week when first set up, refers to Symonds Events and Entertainment Network radio [3]
All students study A-Level General Studies. All students also partake in one extra curricular activity per term (societies, sports, arts).
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