High Storrs School

High Storrs School

Motto	Designed for success
Established	1933
Type	Community school
Headteacher	Ian Gage
Location	High Storrs Road Sheffield South Yorkshire S11 7LH England Coordinates: 53°21′27″N 1°31′21″W / 53.3576°N 1.5224°W / 53.3576; -1.5224
Local authority	City of Sheffield
DfE number	373/4257
DfE URN	107139 Tables
Ofsted	Reports
Students	1575
Gender	Coeducational
Ages	11–18
Houses	Crucible, Lyceum, Merlin, Montgomery
Former name	High Storrs Grammar School
Website	High Storrs

High Storrs is a Coeducational secondary school and sixth form located on the south-western outskirts of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England.

Admissions

High Storrs has a Sixth Form and is a specialist Arts College in the Performing Arts, with a second specialism in Maths and Computing. Headteacher Ian Gage took up post in January 2010.

It is situated in Ecclesall, accessed via the A625.

History

Central Technical School

The school opened on 10 March 1880 as the Central Higher Grade School in the centre of Sheffield, and re-located to its present site at High Storrs in 1933. The association for former pupils retains this historical connection in its name, the Old Centralians.^[1]

Grammar school

The building housed two separate grammar schools from the 1940s to 1968: High Storrs Grammar School for Boys, and High Storrs Grammar School for Girls. It was administered by the Sheffield Education Committee. The buildings were improved in the early 1960s.

Comprehensive

These were merged into a single comprehensive school, starting in September 1969 with around 1,600 boys and girls.

On 11 July 1978, an aerobatics pilot (Philip Meeson, who now owns Jet2, a British aerobatics champion) gave a display above the school; he had chosen the wrong school, as it was Newfield Secondary School he had been asked to perform for.

In 1993, rivalry with the Notre Dame High School led to battles in Endcliffe Park with knives and iron bars. It led to the death of a High Storrs pupil, 17-year-old Grant Jackson (18 November 1975 – 30 April 1993), who was killed with a 2 foot-long bayonet by 14-year-old Errol Donaldson. Grant Jackson had gone to the park not knowing a battle had been arranged. He was kicked on the ground and knifed three times with the bayonet. He died of shock and haemorrhaging soon after in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital. Donaldson, who initially claimed manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, received a life sentence at Sheffield Crown Court on 24 November 1994. Donaldson had boasted about the stabbing the next day, and when the police found the bayonet in his room, had claimed he was keeping it for a friend and denied knowledge of the battle.^[2] After release he would be later involved in the death of a 22-year-old Sheffield young mother in a hit and run incident on 29 August 2009 in Beauchief.^[3]

On 28 June 2008 an event was held to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the school on its present site, with past pupils invited back to the school.

Mr Chapman stepped down suddenly after Easter 2009. The acting headteacher was Roisin Paul, and her permanent replacement is Mr Ian Gage who has been in place since January 2010.

Houses

Recently, the traditional "Key Stage" system was radically changed to the Vertical System, where instead of year groups, there are houses with ten forms to each house. The forms of thirty have six pupils of every year (not including sixth form) in each. This system is meant to reduce bullying and encourage friendships with pupils of different ages. The four houses are named after the main four theatres in Sheffield: Crucible, Lyceum, Merlin and Montgomery. Sixth form students are also attached to a vertical form for organisational and mentoring purposes; typically three sixth formers are attached to one form.

Exam pass rate

In 2008 63% of pupils who took GCSE exams achieved the standard of 5 A*–C grades, including Maths and English.^[4] This is above both the Local Authority average of 40.8% and the national average of 47.6%.^[4]

The average points score for AS and A2 Level students was 675.8, below the national average of 739.8.^[5]

It gets above-average GCSE results and A-levels at the England average.

Sixth form

From September 2009, the school was going to offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma however the new head teacher Ian Gage scrapped the ideas and the school no longer offers the IB,^[6] becoming the first comprehensive in Sheffield to do so.

School renovation

Almost £27 million was allocated for a complete refurbishment and remodelling of the school under the Government's Building Schools for the Future programme, with £2 million being spent on ICT equipment. Preparatory work on the field ready for the new temporary teaching rooms began in July 2008. Demolition of the 1960s extensions to the north of the school was completed in November 2008, and the project was completed in 2011.

Due to the school's Grade II listed status, only the interior of the main school building can be refurbished, with the exterior remaining almost unchanged. A new extension was built at the north end of the building to replace the old dining rooms, school hall and performing arts block, whilst a second extension will be built at a later date to replace the 1960s additions at the south end of the school.

Former teachers

• Veronica Hardstaff, Labour MEP 1994–1999 for Lincolnshire and Humberside South and Sheffield City Councillor 1970-1978 and 2002-2007, taught French and German at the girls' school 1963–1966.

Notable former pupils

• Nicholas Matthew, squash player
• Jessica-Jane Clement, television presenter
• Tom Ellis, actor
• Jayne Irving, GMTV presenter
• Anna Lauren, actress
• Jack Lester, footballer
• Chloe Newsome, actress
• Kyle Walker, Tottenham Hotspur footballer
• Steve Heighway, ex Liverpool footballer

High Storrs Grammar School for Girls

• Judith Bingham, composer
• Janet Brown, Chief Executive since 2007 of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, and Managing Director from 2000–7 of Scottish Enterprise
• Stella Greenall, involved in the introduction of student grants in 1962
• Tessa Bramley, Michelin-starred chef^[7]

High Storrs Grammar School for Boys

• David Allford CBE, architect
• Prof John Anderson, Professor of Dental Prosthetics from 1964–82 at the University of Dundee
• Joseph Ashton OBE, Labour MP from 1968–2001 for Bassetlaw
• Prof Eric Bradford, Professor of Dentistry from 1959–85 at the University of Bristol
• Kenneth Brooksbank DSC, Chief Education Officer of Birmingham from 1968–77
• Prof Robert Buchanan OBE, Professor of the History of Technology from 1990–5 at the University of Bath
• Prof Edward Clegg, Regius Professor of Anatomy from 1976–89 at the University of Aberdeen, and President from 1988–9 of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and Chairman from 1988–92 of the Society for the Study of Human Biology
• Jacob Ecclestone, President from 1979–80 of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ)
• Prof Harold Egglestone, Professor of Mathematics from 1958–66 at Bedford College (London)
• Prof Timothy Evans, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine since 1996 at Imperial College School of Medicine
• Peter Glossop, opera singer
• Steve Heighway, footballer
• Paul Heiney, BBC reporter^[8]
• Very Rev Alfred Jowett, Dean of Manchester from 1964–83^[9]
• Jeff Rawle, actor
• Geoffrey Schild CBE, Director of the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control from 1985–2002^[10]

References

External links

• High Storrs School Website
• High Storrs Centralians
• Ofsted Report (2005)
• Ofsted Report (2008)
• EduBase