Taunton School is a

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...

independent school An independent school is independent in its finances and governance. Also known as private schools, non-governmental, privately funded, or non-state schools, they are not administered by local, state or national governments. In British Eng ...

in the

county town In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

in South West England. It serves boarding and day-school pupils from the ages of 13 to 18. The current

headmaster A head master, head instructor, bureaucrat, headmistress, head, chancellor, principal or school director (sometimes another title is used) is the teacher, staff member of a school with the greatest responsibility for the management of the school ...

is Lee Glaser, appointed in the autumn of 2014. The school campus also includes Taunton School International for overseas students; Taunton Preparatory School, serving boarding and day-school pupils aged 7 to 13; Taunton Pre-Prep School, serving day-school pupils aged 4 to 7, and Taunton Nursery, serving pupils aged 0 to 4.

History

Taunton School was founded in 1847 as Independent College, a boys-only school for

dissenters A dissenter (from the Latin ''dissentire'', "to disagree") is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc. Usage in Christianity Dissent from the Anglican church In the social and religious history of England and Wales, an ...

- those who were not members of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

. In the 1870s, the school's governors purchased a site at the northern end of Taunton, on Staplegrove Road. They had built, by Joseph James, a

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

-influenced building, in the prevailing style of the period. The school is constructed in a C-plan, with a high tower. Grey stone came from Somerset's

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the Frome valley in the east, the hills ...

. This large building still dominates the school's campus today. It is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The school was a founding member of the

World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships The World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships (WIDPSC) is an annual English language debating and public speaking tournament for individual high school-level students representing different countries. It is the public speaking e ...

and has hosted the tournament numerous times. A chapel was built in 1907 in contrasting style to the rest of the school. Its sponsor was the wealthy

William Wills, 1st Baron Winterstoke William Henry Wills, 1st Baron Winterstoke (1 September 1830 – 29 January 1911), known as Sir William Wills, Bt., between 1893 and 1906, was a British businessman, philanthropist and Liberal politician. Seat - Combe Lodge, Blagdon, Somerset. ...

. Wills was a director of Bristol-based tobacco firm, W.D. & H.O. Wills. Two features in the chapel were especially of note: the organ and the

mosaics A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

. In 2007 on the centenary of the founding of the chapel the original pipe organ was broken up, it being replaced by a new digital organ which was funded in part, by donations from Old Tauntonians. In September 1971, Taunton School began the merger with Weirfield School, an independent boarding and day school for girls, which was also situated on Staplegrove Road, by admitting girls into the Sixth Form. Then in 1976 Taunton School completed this merger with the rest of the senior section of Weirfield School. This became one of the earliest fully co-educational independent schools in England. Additional buildings were erected on the original Taunton School campus, and Weirfield continued as a girls-only junior school. In 1990, in order to create closer links between the two junior schools and Taunton School, Taunton Junior School (originally known as Thone) and Weirfield were renamed Taunton Junior Boys School and Taunton Junior Girls School, respectively. As both Junior Schools needed modernisation, building began in 1993 on the boys' site (Thone) to create a new joint boys and girls school, which was partly financed by the sale of the Weirfield site. In 1994 both schools were located at the Thone site and they were renamed Taunton Preparatory School. A classroom block in the Preparatory School is called Weirfield, as is the main senior girls' Boarding house.

Notable Old Tauntonians

Former pupils of Taunton School are known as Old Tauntonians.

Academic results

A-Level The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational aut ...

: Percentage of A level students achieving at least 3 A levels at A*-E: 2015 - 84%

International Baccalaureate The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB Dip ...

: The first cohort of students sat the IB Diploma in 2009. Their result ranked the school as the highest IB newcomer in the UK by the ''Financial Times''. In 2010, one student achieved the highest possible mark of 45 points.

GCSE The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...

: Percentage of pupils who gained at 5 grades A* - C 2015 - 83% University progression: Over the past years, some students have gone on to universities including Oxford and Cambridge. Approximately 96% of all Sixth Form leavers take up University or College places.

References

External links

Official websiteTaunton School InternationalTaunton School Notable Alumni
{{Authority control Boarding schools in Somerset Educational institutions established in 1847 Independent schools in Somerset Member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference International Baccalaureate schools in England 1847 establishments in England Schools in Taunton