St Laurence School

St Laurence School
Motto Working together, Learning together
Established 1980
Type Voluntary controlled school and Academy
Religion Church of England/Christian/Jewish
Headteacher Mr James Colquhoun
Founder Lord Fitzmaurice
Specialism Arts
Location Ashley Road
Bradford-on-Avon
Wiltshire
BA15 1DZ
England
DfE number ???/4537
DfE URN 137057
Ofsted Pre-Academy Reports
Students 1,265
Gender Coeducational
Ages 11–18
Former name Fitzmaurice Grammar School
Diocese Salisbury
Website SLS

St Laurence School is a state secondary comprehensive school in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, England. It became an Academy in August 2011.

Contents

Admissions

The school is also a specialist Arts College, formerly in the district of West Wiltshire. The current headteacher is James Colquhoun. It takes pupils also from Atworth, Monkton Farleigh, Winsley, Limpley Stoke South Wraxall, and Trowbridge. It is situated in the north-west of Bradford-on-Avon on the road out towards Little Ashley.

History

The school was founded in 1980 on as a result of the merger of Fitzmaurice Grammar School and Trinity Secondary Modern school, opening on the Trinity site. In 2000 it became a Performing Arts College, resulting in extra investment in drama, music and dance facilities. It is named after the historically-important saxon St Laurence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon.

The school's teaching departments are spread across numerous buildings on the school site. The school site also includes a large sports hall and several sports courts, pitches and playing fields. A lecture theatre was built in 2007 and was joined last year by a state of the art independent learning centre.

In October 2005, a helium balloon launched at a school fete on 24 September 2005, was found by 53 year old Isak Toyra in Karesuando, Sweden who sent it back to the school, and claimed a £10 prize.[1] Karesuando is 1,430 miles (2,300 km) from the school, and information about the school was also sent to him.

Wiltshire Music Centre

The Wiltshire Music Centre opened in 1998. Private and curriculum-based music lessons are held in the classrooms and teaching rooms in this building; and school assemblies, exam presentations, and other special events are held in its main auditorium. The Music Centre also contains a recording studio.

Roman villa remains

Aerial photographs and minor archaeological excavations in 1976 indicated the presence of the remains of a Roman Villa underneath the school's sports fields[2]. A more major excavation in 2003 uncovered Roman era floor mosaics and walls once belonging to this villa, along with a stone structure believed to have once been part of an early Christian baptistery.

Model United Nations

St Laurence is one of only a handful of state-sector schools in the country to take part in Model United Nations. The school's inaugural MUN conference was held in November 2007, and was attended by delegates from state and private schools across the south west of England. The MUN conference is now a routinely run conference, hosting up to 150 students, over two days of debating. It is deemed as a conference of learning how the MUN debating system works, and thus does not hand out prizes (best delegate etc). It is highly regarded as a fun, but serious conference but the schools who attend.

Academic performance

In 2008 65% of the school's GCSE pupils achieved grades 5 A* to C including English and Mathematics. Currently there are 1,215 pupils attending the school, across key stages 3-5.

It gets the third best GCSE results for comprehensives in Wiltshire with very creditable results, and the seventh best for comprehensives at A level, with results above the England average. Most schools in Wiltshire achieve good results at A level: which is not always the case in other rural English counties.

Alumni

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Smith_%28actress%29

External links

News items