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

Notable former pupils

High Storrs Grammar School for Girls

High Storrs Grammar School for Boys

References

External links

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