Lee
Lee may refer to:
Name
Given name
* Lee (given name), a given name in English
Surname
* Chinese surnames romanized as Li or Lee:
** Li (surname 李) or Lee (Hanzi ), a common Chinese surname
** Li (surname 利) or Lee (Hanzi ), a Chinese ...
Visitor
A visitor, in English and Welsh law and history, is an overseer of an autonomous ecclesiastical or eleemosynary institution, often a charitable institution set up for the perpetual distribution of the founder's alms and bounty, who can interve ...
Colfe's is one of the oldest schools in London. The parish priest of Lewisham taught the local children from the time of Richard Walker's chantry, founded in 1494, until the dissolution of the monasteries by
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
. Rev. John Glyn re-established the school in 1568 and it was granted a Charter by Elizabeth I in 1574.
Abraham Colfe
Abraham Colfe (died 1657) was vicar of Lewisham from 1610 to 1657 and a notable English philanthropist, founding Colfe's School, a reading (primary) or Latin school and five almshouses for the inhabitants of Lewisham (today, part of south-east Lon ...
became a Governor in 1613 and the school was re-founded bearing his name in 1652.
Colfe declared that the aim of the school was to provide an education for the boys from "the Hundred of Blackheath". He invited the Leathersellers' Company, one of London's livery companies, to be the trustee of his will. Links between the school and the Leathersellers remain strong.
The school was originally built around Colfe's house with an entrance in Lewisham Hill. The site was progressively developed and extended until 1890, when it was completely rebuilt on the same site with its entrance now in Granville Park. During the Second World War the school was first evacuated to Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and then to Frome in Somerset. A period of inactivity on the Western front led about 100 boys to return to London, so the school was split for a few years. In 1944 a V2 (Flying bomb) almost totally destroyed the school.
At the end of the War, with no school buildings and the pupil roll having halved, it was uncertain if the school would continue. In London the school was split between two sites – Beacon Road School in Hither Green and Ennersdale Road School, about a quarter of a mile away. "Temporary" buildings (rows of pre-fabricated concrete construction) were erected and the school came together again in 1947 under the headmastership of Herbert Beardwood MSc. The "temporary" buildings were still being used until the move to the new site in 1963.
Herbert Beardwood updated Leland Duncan's "History of Colfe's Grammar School" in 1952, in celebration of the school's tercentenary under Colfe's name. The book was further updated by Beardwood in 1972, to reflect both the move to the present campus at the east end of the playing fields, and the impact on the school of the machinations of early 1970s UK politics.
The school moved to its current site in 1963 and since then there has been much change: improved facilities have been provided, such as an all-weather sports pitch, a performing arts centre, and new classroom facilities. The Leathersellers' sports ground has been renovated to make it the home of senior sport (rugby, football and cricket).
Having been a voluntary aided grammar school, Colfe's became independent again in 1977. Although founded as a school for boys, girls have been admitted to the Sixth Form for over thirty years. In 1997, it was decided to allow girls throughout the school, and today the school is fully co-educational.
Current organisation
The School admits pupils at the age of 3 into the Nursery, from which they progress to the Junior School aged 4. From here pupils make the transition to the Senior school at the age of 11.
Senior School (Ages 1118)
The Senior School is based at the top of the main school site. An all-weather playing field (funded in part by donations from parents and former pupils) was opened in 2006. The school also has a Performing arts centre, a Sports Complex complete with a 25 m swimming pool, 2 gyms and a Sports Hall, IT and Music facilities and over of playing fields. Many of the facilities are shared with the Junior School. Opened in September 2015 the new Stuart building now houses the Maths and RP departments and the sixth form area. There is a café and a sixth form common room.
There is a
House system
The house system is a traditional feature of schools in the United Kingdom. The practice has since spread to Commonwealth countries and the United States. The school is divided into subunits called "houses" and each student is allocated to o ...
at Colfe's. The Houses are named after four long serving Headmasters; Beardwood, Bramley, Norton and Prendergast. Throughout the school year each pupil takes part in a full and varied programme of activities outside the main curriculum, in which the pupils participate in healthy competition by age groups to help his or her house win at the end of the year. From September 2012, Colfe's has also introduced tutoring in Houses. Pupils are in mixed age tutor groups with other students from the same House. A team of House tutors is led by a Head of House who has oversight of pastoral and academic progress of the students in their House.
Junior School (Ages 311)
The Junior School is located at the bottom of the school site, in two self-contained buildings. One of the buildings is for EYFS and KS1 and the other for KS2. The Junior School has the same high standards as the Senior School and also shares many of the facilities including the sports complex, the fields and the Performing Arts Centre.
Antonio Brady
Sir Antonio Brady (10 November 1811 – 12 December 1881) was an English naturalist, social reformer and British Admiralty official.
Brady was born at Deptford on 10 November 1811, being the eldest son of Anthony Brady of the Deptford victuallin ...
Paul Clinton
Paul Clinton (1953 – January 30, 2006) was an American film critic. He served as CNN.com film critic for 20 years. He was the co-founder of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA).
Clinton was born in Columbus, Ohio and attended Ohio St ...
Kenneth Grayston Kenneth Grayston (8 July 1914 – 10 June 2005) was a British theologian. He is the author of ''Dying, We Live. A New Inquiry into the Death of Christ in the New Testament'' (1990).Malcolm Hardee, comedy club proprietor.
* John Henry Hayes, Conservative politician.
*
Andrew Shoben
Andrew Matthew Shoben, FRBS FRSA (born 8th Nov. 1971, in London UK) is an English artist, academic and broadcaster. He is Professor of Public Art and Computation at Goldsmiths, University of London as well as a Fellow of the Royal British Societ ...
, artist, professor, Broadcaster.
*
Jeff Hearn
Jeffery Richard (Jeff) Hearn (born 5 August 1947) is a British sociologist, and Research Professor at the University of Huddersfield, and Professor at the Hanken School of Economics.
Biography
Hearn obtained his MA at the University of Oxfo ...
, Assistant Professor of Economics and Business Administration.
* Conor Henderson, professional footballer.
*
Norman Hepple
Robert Norman Hepple (18 May 1908 – 3 January 1994) was an English portrait painter, engraver and sculptor, best known for his portraits of the British royal family. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1948 ...
RA RP (19081994), portrait painter
* Peter Howitt, actor, film writer and director.
*
Jem Karacan
Jem Paul Karacan (born 21 February 1989) is a professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Northern Premier League club Radcliffe. Prior to his move to Bolton he played for Turkish club Galatasaray and Reading, as well as various loan s ...
F.L. Lucas
Frank Laurence Lucas (28 December 1894 – 1 June 1967) was an English classical scholar, literary critic, poet, novelist, playwright, political polemicist, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and intelligence officer at Bletchley Park during ...
(18941967), literary critic and writer.
* James Marsh, Academy Award-winning film maker of Man on Wire,
* Edmund Nelson, (19102007), portrait painter.
*
Steve Parish
Steve Parish OAM is a photographer and publisher. Born in Great Britain in 1945, he is the founder of Steve Parish Publishing, which specialised in creating and publishing photographic information books on nature for adults and children, as ...
Claire Rafferty
Claire Lauren Rafferty (born 11 January 1989) is an English pundit and retired professional footballer. She made over 100 appearances as a left back or left winger for Chelsea in the FA WSL and also spent time at Millwall Lionesses and West H ...
Curved Air
Curved Air are an English progressive rock group formed in 1970 by musicians from mixed artistic backgrounds, including classical, folk, and electronic sound. The resulting sound of the band is a mixture of progressive rock, folk rock, and fus ...
Keith Colin Smith
Keith may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters
* Keith (surname)
* Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949)
* Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons i ...
, (19652000) stellar spectroscopist and astrophysicist.
* Professor William Alexander Campbell Stewart (19151997), educationist and university administrator.
*
Francis Stock
Francis Edgar Stock Order of the British Empire, CBE (5 July 1914 – 26 September 1997) was a British academic and academic administrator.
He was educated at Colfe's School, Colfe's Grammar School, King's College London (Associateship of Ki ...
Dennis Main Wilson
Dennis Geoffrey William Wilson, known as Dennis Main Wilson (1 May 1924 – 20 January 1997) was a British producer of radio and television programmes, mainly for the BBC. Main Wilson has been described by ''Screenonline'' as "arguably the ...
Victor Maslin Yeates
Victor Maslin Yeates (30 September 1897 — 15 December 1934), often abbreviated to V. M. Yeates, was a British fighter pilot in World War I. He wrote ''Winged Victory'', a semi-autobiographical work widely regarded as one of the most realistic ...
, World War I
Royal Flying Corps
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
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fighter ace
A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace is varied, but is usually co ...
.
Further reading
* Leland L. Duncan ''The History of Colfe's Grammar School and a life of its founder'' 1910.
References
The History of Colfe's Grammar School by
Leland L. Duncan
Leland Lewis Duncan, (24 August 1862 – 26 December 1923) was an English public servant, antiquary and author.
Biography
Duncan was the eldest child and only son of Leland Crosthwait Duncan and Caroline Ellen Lewis. His father, a grandson of Lel ...
(revised and updated by H Beardwood), pub: University of London Press, 1952