The Vyne Community School is a coeducational community school in
Basingstoke
Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
for young people aged 11–16, and still occupies the site of the former Queen Mary's School for Boys, in Vyne Road, Basingstoke. It is a specialist school for the Performing Arts.
History
The school was created out of the merger of two pre-existing schools,
Queen Mary's School for Boys, Basingstoke a selective
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 ...
, also known as QMSB, and Charles Chute Secondary Modern School, which occurred in 1970. Initially the school was known as Queen Mary's & Charles Chute School, and was the result of the U.K. Government's policy in the 1960s to make all maintained (state funded) schools
comprehensive. In the first instance the school remained a single sex institution, becoming coeducational in 1971–72. The name "Queen Mary's" was later transferred to the
Queen Mary's College, a Sixth Form College, in Cliddesden Road, Basingstoke. The school was thereupon renamed The Vyne School, in commemoration of the links that both schools had to
The Vyne, a property owned by the
, former home of the Sandys and Chute families, just north of Basingstoke.
In 1997 The School was used as a filming location in the LGBT Coming of age film
Get Real (film)
''Get Real'' is a 1998 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Simon Shore, based on the play '' What's Wrong with Angry?'' by screenwriter Patrick Wilde. The plot centres the coming of age of a gay teen while growing up in rural Britai ...
Facilities
The Vyne is the only school in Basingstoke to have a
Combined Cadet Force
The Combined Cadet Force (CCF) is a youth organisation in the United Kingdom, sponsored by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), which operates in schools, and normally includes Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force sections. Its aim is to "provide a ...
(CCF).
Notable alumni
*
Kit Symons
Christopher Jerry "Kit" Symons (born 8 March 1971) is a professional association football manager and former Welsh international footballer. As a professional player, he had lengthy spells at Portsmouth, Manchester City and Fulham as well as ea ...
- Professional association football manager and former Welsh international footballer. Former manager of Crystal Palace, Colchester United and Fulham.
*
Steve Hewlett - Professional ventriloquist and ''Britain's Got Talent'' finalist.
*
Monty Don
Montagu Denis Wyatt Don (born George Montagu Don; 8 July 1955) is a British horticulturist, broadcaster, and writer who is best known as the lead presenter of the BBC gardening television series '' Gardeners' World''.
Born in Germany and rais ...
- British broadcaster and lead presenter of the BBC gardening television series ''
Gardeners' World
''Gardeners' World'' is a long-running British gardening programme, first broadcast on 5 January 1968. The 2022 series is the 53rd. Its first series was presented by Ken Burras and came from Oxford Botanical Gardens. Up until 2020 most of its e ...
'' since 2003.
External links
* http://www.vyne.hants.sch.uk/
* http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-thevyne
Schools in Basingstoke
Secondary schools in Hampshire
Community schools in Hampshire
Educational institutions established in 1970
{{Hampshire-school-stub