Raynes Park High School is a co-educational comprehensive school which educates students aged 11 to 19. It is located in

Raynes Park Raynes Park is a residential suburb, railway station and local centre near Wimbledon, London, and is within the London Borough of Merton. It is situated southwest of Wimbledon Common, to the northwest of Wimbledon Chase and to the east of Ne ...

, England, coming under the London Borough of Merton.

Location

Raynes Park High School is situated at the junction of the Kingston bypass (A3) and ''Bushey Road'' (A298). To the east, it is bounded by ''West Barnes Lane'' (B282), and just east of the boundary between the boroughs of

Kingston upon Thames Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable ...

(

New Malden New Malden is an area in South West London, England. It is located mainly within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and the London Borough of Merton, and is from Charing Cross. Neighbouring localities include Kingston, Norbiton, Raynes ...

) and Merton, and just north of the ''Shannon Corner'' junction of the A3/B282. TfL contracted bus routes that serve the school include 131,

152 Year 152 (Roman numerals, CLII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Glabrio and Homullus (or, less frequently, year 905 ''Ab ...

265 __NOTOC__ Year 265 ( CCLXV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Valerianus and Lucillus (or, less frequently, year 1018 ' ...

, 655, K5, N87 with nearby

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the ...

stations include

Motspur Park Motspur Park, also known locally as West Barnes, is a residential suburb in south-west London, in the New Malden district. It straddles the boroughs of Kingston upon Thames and Merton. Motspur Park owes its identity to the railway station of ...

and

all operated by South Western Railway and all within the oyster fare zone.

History

The school first came into being as a boys only

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

in 1935. It remained as such for the next 34 years until 1969 when it became a 13–18 boys' comprehensive. In September 1990, when as along with the rest of the borough's schools, it became a 12–16 mixed comprehensive. Finally in September 2010 like all other high schools in the borough, the school's sixth form was re-instated. The school is now an official mixed 11–19.

Sixth form

Following the conversion of Merton's education system to a two tier structure in the 1990s, the school's sixth form was closed. Students wishing to take A-levels enrolled at various colleges or sixth forms in the area. Subsequently, sixth form centres were re-introduced for all Merton High Schools and in September 2010 the purpose built sixth form block opened its doors to Year 12 students. The sixth form now offers a variety of A-level courses, level 3 vocational courses and also offers GCSE retakes for English and Maths.

School organisation

The Head Teacher is Kirsten Heard and the Chair of Governors is Michael Ross. The school last had an Ofsted inspection in January 2019, when it was graded Good. There have been eight Headteachers: * John Garrett, * Charles Wrinch * T. Henry Porter * G. David N. Giles * Brian Butler * John D. Massey * Ian Newman * Phillip Wheatley * Kirsten Heard *

Traditions

W.H. Auden, who had collaborated with the founding headmaster, John Garett, on an anthology called ''The Poet’s Tongue'' in 1935, composed the words for the school song, though the original has been since shortened and modernised. Raynes Park has four Houses: Miltons, Gibbs, Halliwells and Newsoms. The Houses are all identified by distinctive ties (Miltons:white, Gibbs:red, Halliwells:yellow and Newsoms:purple). These names were taken from four of the first five teachers. The fifth teacher, Cobb, also had a House (Cobbs:green) and the name remained in use for some buildings until December 2002

Awards

* FA Charter Standard Development School Award for outstanding contribution to Football"Raynes Park High School – Inspection report"
Ofsted, 4 June 2008. * Sport England

Sports Mark Sportsmark is Sport England's accreditation scheme for secondary schools. The scheme recognises a school's out of hours sports provision.

Award for delivery of national PE

Guinness world record

The Guinness world record for the largest

egg and spoon race An egg-and-spoon race is a sporting event in which participants must balance an egg or similarly shaped item upon a spoon and race with it to the finishing line. At many primary schools an egg-and-spoon race is staged as part of the annual Sport ...

was broken by 859 pupils, from Raynes Park High School, in October 2003."Egg and spoon race smashes record "

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

, 24 October 2003

Notable former pupils

Raynes Park County Grammar School

Derek Cooper Major George Derek Cooper OBE MC (28 May 1912 – 19 May 2007) was a British Army officer, campaigner for refugees, and supporter of the Palestinian people. Early life and career Cooper was born in Bromley in Kent. He was the third of four c ...

OBE,

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

broadcaster of the '' Food Programme'', and President from 1988 to 1995 of the

Guild of Food Writers The Guild of Food Writers is the professional association of food writers and broadcasters in the United Kingdom. It has around 550 authors, broadcasters, columnists and journalists amongst its members. History On 12 April 1984, a number of lea ...

* Sir

Howard Dalton Sir Howard Dalton, FRS (8 February 1944 – 12 January 2008) was a British microbiologist. He served as the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) from March 2002 to September 2007. Educ ...

, Professor of Microbiology from 1983 to 2008 at the

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (2020� ...

, and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) from 2002–7 * Charles Higham, archaeologist * John Hopkins, TV writer * Maj-Gen Anthony Jeapes CB OBE MC, Commander of Land Forces Northern Ireland from 1985–7, and Commander of 22 Regiment SAS from 1974–7 and 5 Airborne Brigade from 1982–5 * Prof Peter J. Parsons, Regius Professor of Greek at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

from 1989 to 2003 * Robert Robinson, TV quiz presenter, and radio presenter of ''

Brain of Britain ''Brain of Britain'' is a BBC radio general knowledge quiz, broadcast on BBC Radio 4. History It began as a slot in ''What Do You Know?'' in 1953. The main part of the show was the "Brain of Britain" quiz itself, originally called "Ask Me An ...

'' until 2005 * Prof Tony Tanner, Professor of English and American Literature from 1989 to 1998 at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

* Sir David Christopher Veness, CBE, QPM, Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations, Metropolitan Police 1994–2005, leaving to serve as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security. *

Paul Vaughan Paul William Vaughan (24 October 1925 – 14 November 2014) was a British journalist, radio presenter (of art and science programmes) throughout the 1970s and 1990s, semi-professional jazz and classical musician and a narrator of many BBC Telev ...

, TV and radio broadcaster

Raynes Park High School

Carl Asaba Carl Edward Asaba (born 28 January 1973) is an English former footballer who played as a forward in the Football League. He began his career with non-league Dulwich Hamlet, his goalscoring prowess earning him a move to Brentford in 1994. He p ...

, professional footballer. *

Leon Britton Leon James Britton (born 16 September 1982) is an English footballer and coach who plays for Ammanford in the Cymru South. A midfielder, he spent most of his career with Swansea City, having joined Swansea on a permanent transfer in 2003. Brit ...

, professional footballer. * Simon Coleman ( Simon Basher), artist. *

Mike Lindup Michael David Lindup (born 17 March 1959) is a musician best known as the keyboard player and falsetto voiced singer, who joined with Mark King and brothers Phil and Boon Gould to form the British jazz-funk/pop rock band, Level 42. Early lif ...

, pop musician. * Chris Powell, professional footballer. *

Gary Sheffield Gary Antonian Sheffield (born November 18, 1968) is an American former professional baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball for eight teams from 1988 to 2009. He is a sports agent. For most of his career, Sheffield played right ...

, academic military historian. * Andy Thorn, professional footballer. *

Robbie McIntosh Robbie McIntosh (born 25 October 1957) is an English guitarist. McIntosh is well known as a session guitarist and member of The Pretenders from 1982 until 1987. In 1988 he began doing session guitar work for Paul McCartney joining his band fu ...

, pop musician.

References

External links

Official site

Information on the school on gov.uk

Ofsted report
{{Authority control Secondary schools in the London Borough of Merton Educational institutions established in 1935 1935 establishments in England People educated at Raynes Park County Grammar School Community schools in the London Borough of Merton