Durrington High School

Durrington High School

Established	1973
Type	Academy
Headteacher	Ms S Marooney [1]
Chair of Governors	Angus Watts[1]
Location	The Boulevard Worthing West Sussex BN13 1JX England Coordinates: 50°49′37″N 0°24′00″W / 50.827°N 0.40°W / 50.827; -0.40
DfE number	938/4065
DfE URN	140713 Tables
Ofsted	Reports Pre-academy reports
Students	1435[1]
Gender	Mixed
Ages	12–16
Website	www.durringtonhigh.w-sussex.sch.uk

Durrington High School is a Coeducational secondary school located in Worthing, West Sussex. The school has operated as a high school since 1973, and as of 2014 serves around 1435 pupils aged 12 to 16 across four year groups as part of Worthing's three-tier provision. The school converted to academy status on 1 April 2014. From September 2015 the school will become a standard secondary for 11 - 16-year-olds.

History

This senior school is the product of a merger in 1973 of two neighbouring schools, with their playing fields divided by a single white line: Worthing County Secondary School for Girls (Rodmell Road site) and Worthing Technical High School (Boulevard site). The County Secondary School for Girls moved to the new brick built Rodmell Road building in 1953 from the historic Sussex Road school with Miss Lilian Belchamber continuing her distinguished career as the head mistress until the creation of Durrington High School in 1973. The Technical High moved to the Boulevard location in 1955 from Union Place Worthing and renamed Worthing Technical High School. The school building has now been rebuilt and extended considerably with the Technical High building demolished some years ago and many sections of the Rodmell Road building still standing and extended. Durrington High School continues to have the seahorse as their school crest which was the emblem of the County Secondary school. The school uniform has been modified over the years and the successful re-introduction of compulsory school blazers in 2008.

Drama: Under the direction of Paul Brown, a former pupil, who was Head of Drama & Creative Arts, Durrington High School was represented in the West End with pupils performing in the production of "Fire Costs" at the Lyric Theatre, London, October 1993 - a performance that was produced by the Home Office. The production was originally presented at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing in the Autumn of 1991 and was the result of a competition run by West Sussex Fire Brigade in which local schoolchildren were encouraged to submit stories based on the subject of fire. The winning entries were turned into a play by Paul Brown; Boundstone's Head of Drama, Tom Brown; the Connaught Theatre's Manager Stephen Holroyd and Mel Denman from West Sussex Fire Brigade. Durrington High was renowned for the quality of its drama department's public theatre productions, particularly under the team of Paul Brown, Hilary Lane and former head of music Richard Colbourne. During the course of the 1994/5 re-build, two high-quality Shakespearian productions were presented at the Barn Theatre, Field Place - including an open air Summer production of "The Tempest" and the pre-Christmas production of "Macbeth". The newly opened school included a purpose built drama studio,amphitheatre and overhaul of the existing Rodmell Hall stage. The exterior of the new drama studio (reminiscent of a mini version of Chicester's Minerva Theatre) includes stone heads representing Shakespearean characters that were designed by pupils who appeared in many of the productions during the 1994/5 school year. The school won the local heats of Rock Challenge in 2008 and 2009. They came 3rd in the Southern Rock Challenge Finals 2008. In 2011, they also placed 8th in the U.K. Maths challenge test.

Campus

The school shares a campus with Oak Grove College Special School. The building is purpose-built, offering facilities for all subjects, including science labs, technology suites and a music department. There is also a large field in which cricket pitches and goal posts are set up, and a MUGA (Multi Use Games Arena) for 6 a-side leagues etc.

Curriculum

Students join the school in Year 8 from local middle schools.^[1] The school is a Business and Enterprise College, so Business Communication is a compulsory exam for all students in their final year. However, as of academic year 2011-2012, students will have a choice between Business and Communication Systems, Business BTEC, and ICT GCSE.

Companies

Durrington High School pupils are divided into six companies: Roddick, Shelley, Franklin, Mercator, Coubertin, and Da Vinci. All of these are named after famous people devoted to a certain subject or subjects, e.g. Franklin-Science and Music. There are tie colours to show which pupil belongs to which company. The colours are blue, purple, green, white, gold and red. There is a weekly assembly for each company. The purpose of the companies is to allow the younger and older students to bond together. The weekly company assembles include pupils from all years; replacing the traditional year group meetings, although sometimes there are year group meetings.^[2]

Notable former pupils

• Jonathan Sevink - Fiddle player for band The Levellers.^[3]

References

External links

• Durrington High School website