King's School, Macclesfield

The King's School in Macclesfield is an independent school for day pupils in Macclesfield, Cheshire, England, and a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. It was founded in 1502 by Sir John Percyvale, a former Lord Mayor of London, as Macclesfield Grammar School.

History

The King's School was founded in 1502 within the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Macclesfield. It was re-founded by Edward VI in 1552 as the "Free Grammar School of King Edward VI", moving to its current location on Cumberland Street in 1844.

The school operated as a direct-grant school and offered scholarships for boys from state elementary schools from 1926 until 1966, when its application to continue as a direct grant grammar school was refused and it became fully independent.^[1][2]

The boys' junior school was opened in 1947. In 1993 girls from age 11 to 16 were admitted and housed with co-educational juniors, and later infants, at the old Macclesfield High School site on Fence Avenue. The Sixth Form had been co-educational since 1986.^[3]

Prior to the abolition of corporal punishment in British schools, King's had a reputation for harsh discipline. Boys were routinely slippered in the classroom for a wide variety of offences. The cane was used for serious misconduct.^[4]

King's School's 2020 development plans are designed to close the two existing school sites in Macclesfield and open a new single site school in Prestbury, near Macclesfield.^[5] The development plans involve selling off the two existing school sites for housing development to fund the new school site. The school acquired greenbelt farmland adjacent to its Fence Avenue site for which it subsequently sought planning permission in order to develop the existing school site and the farmland for housing.^[6] Planning permission was granted to the school to build more than 250 houses on the greenbelt land in Macclesfield in July 2016.^[7]The proposed new school will also be built on green belt land in nearby Prestbury. Planning permission for all sites was confirmed when the Secretary of State declined to call in the plans for further scrutiny in September 2016.^[8]

Academia

The school follows the National Curriculum for GCSE in Years 10-11 and A-Levels in the sixth form. In 2012, pupils achieved A*/A in 41% of all exams and A* - B in three quarters of exams. Pupils achieved the best-ever GCSE results in 2012 with 33% of grades at A* grade, more than 63% of grades at A*/A and 86% at A* - B grade.

In 2011, pupils achieved 75% A* to B grade at A-level, with a 99.7% pass rate, and 60% As and A*s at GCSE.^[9]

Extra-curricular activities

Music

In 2003 the school's Foundation Choir won BBC Songs of Praise Choir of the Year.^[10] It takes bi-annual trips to perform across Europe, having visited Barcelona, Levico Terme, Strasbourg, Lake Geneva and Budapest and in 2016 the choir performed in Prague. The choir and numerous bands also perform at nearby St. Michael's Church.^[11] The school's music department is equipped with a recording studio and practice rooms and offers instrumental lessons to the students.^[12] The department also performs musicals such as The Revenge of Sherlock Holmes,^[13][14] a West End musical, in 2012.

Drama

The school performs 2 to 3 plays a year; one by the Boys' Division/Sixth Form, one by the Girls' Division, and one by the Juniors. Recent plays include Cinders,^[15] Arabian Nights,^[16] and The Ramayana.

School trips

Trips abroad are arranged by individual departments, including those by the History and Classics departments, in addition to annual foreign language exchange visits.^[17] Pupils are involved in biennial World Challenge Expeditions and recent expeditions have been to Morocco,^[18] Ecuador, India and most recently Namibia.^[19]

The school's Outdoor Activities Club organises regualartrips to Yorkshire^[20] or the Peak District, that include walking, climbing and caving.

Sports

School sports include rugby, hockey, netball, cheerleading^[21][22] and cricket for both boys and girls.^[23][24] In 2012 the 1st rugby XV won the Rugby World "Team of the Month" competition twice. In the 2012–13 season the team reached the Daily Mail quarter finals, as well as being named "Team of the Month" once again by the same magazine.

In 2006 the Boys' XI Hockey Team became national champions, with two of its players representing the country. The previous year the team were national runners-up. In 2007 the Girls' Division began cheerleading training under Rachael Burrows, a national champion and 2009 European Champion. In 2008 the King's Cubs (Years 8 and 9) and the King's Lions (Year 11) cheerleaders became national champions in their age group with the King's Kittens (Year 7) placed 5th.

Headmasters

Notable former pupils

• Rt Hon Alan Beith MP, politician
• Andy Bird CBE, Chairman, Walt Disney International
• Christian Blackshaw, classical pianist
• John Blundell, economist
• John Bradshaw, the chief prosecutor of Charles I and the first man to sign his death warrant
• Jon Craig, Chief Political Correspondent of Sky News (in the Junior School)
• Ian Curtis and Stephen Morris, of the post-punk band Joy Division
• Oliver Holt, former Chief Sports Correspondent for the Times and currently Chief Sports Writer for the Daily Mirror
• Michael Jackson, former Channel 4 Chief Executive
• Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury, known as the Red Dean
• Sir Eric Jones,^[26] Previous Director of GCHQ
• Peter Kenyon, Chelsea F.C. chief executive
• Peter Moores, England cricket coach
• Tristan O'Neill (aka Muttley Macclad), lead vocalist of punk bank the Macc Lads
• Duncan Robinson CBE, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and Chairman of the Henry Moore Foundation
• Rev. Thomas Taylor, priest and historian
• Tommy Taylor, England non-capped player (hooker) and Sale Sharks rugby player^[27]

Publications

Published books by King's School teachers:

• Banner, Gillian (1999). Holocaust Literature: Schulz, Levi, Spiegelman and the Memory of the Offence. Vallentine Mitchell. ISBN 978-0-85303-371-4. 
• Palazzo, Lynda (2002). Christina Rossetti's Feminist Theology. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-92033-6. 
• Hill, David (2003). For King's and Country. Chameleon Press. 
• Wilmot, Darwin (1910). A Short History of the Grammar School, Macclesfield 1503-1910. Claye, Brown and Claye. 

References