Wymondham College
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Wymondham College is a coeducational day and boarding school in
Morley Morley may refer to: Places England * Morley, Norfolk, a civil parish * Morley, Derbyshire, a civil parish * Morley, Cheshire, a village * Morley, County Durham, a village * Morley, West Yorkshire, a suburban town of Leeds and civil parish * M ...
, near
Wymondham Wymondham ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the South Norfolk district of Norfolk, England, south-west of Norwich, England, Norwich off the A11 road (England), A11 road to London. The River Tiffey runs through ...
,
Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
,
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 b ...
with academy status. A former
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 ...
, it is one of 36 state
boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...
s in England and the largest of its type in the country, with up to 650 boarding places. It is also an affiliate member of the
Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) is an association of the head teachers of 361 independent schools (both boarding schools and day schools), some traditionally described as public schools. 298 Members are based in the United ...
(HMC).


History


Former military hospital

The school is built on the site of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
USAAF The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
231st Station Hospital, When the school first opened in 1951 the hospital's forty
Nissen hut A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure for military use, especially as barracks, made from a half-cylindrical skin of corrugated iron. Designed during the First World War by the American-born, Canadian-British engineer and inventor Majo ...
s were used as
dormitories A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...
. It was established by Lincoln Ralphs, the chief education officer of
Norfolk County Council Norfolk County Council is the top-tier local government authority for Norfolk, England. Its headquarters are based in the city of Norwich. Below it there are 7 second-tier local government district councils: Breckland District, Broadland Distr ...
. Brick-built accommodation began to appear in the late 1950s, but Nissen huts remained in use, principally for classrooms and storage, through to end of the 1990s. The only Nissen hut now remaining is the College chapel. A memorial garden has been created on the site of the former USAAF
mortuary A morgue or mortuary (in a hospital or elsewhere) is a place used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification (ID), removal for autopsy, respectful burial, cremation or other methods of disposal. In modern times, corpses have cus ...
, which for many years was used as the school's technical drawing classroom.


Grammar schools

In 1951 there were two separate schools,
Grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
and
Technical Technical may refer to: * Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle * Technical analysis, a discipline for forecasting the future direction of prices through the study of past market data * Technical drawing, showing how something is co ...
, each with separate Heads. They merged in the mid-1950s after an uneasy co-existence. The school was a co-educational boarding grammar school. It was intended for academically-gifted children with no grammar schools in their local area that they could attend, as well as those with parents abroad or who regularly moved around the country. It gave priority, where possible, to children from families where the parents had separated, thus possibly under financial hardship. Admissions were by examination and headmasters' reports. In the mid-1970s, the school had 700 boarders and 750 day pupils (from the former county grammar school). By 1978 this was 1,000 day pupils as well as the 700 boarders.
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
visited the school in the early 1970s. The school remained exclusively 'boarding' until the early 1970s, when it was merged with the County Grammar School, which had been hosted at Wymondham on a 'temporary' basis for nearly ten years. The school in the 1970s had been in a state of disrepair with an out-dated water supply and drainage system, and had an unreliable heating system (built by the USAF in 1944) in the winter and lack of insulation. Despite these problems it was still producing outstanding academic results. It was offered £250,000 in 1978 by the Labour government to address the situation, on condition that the school became a
comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is res ...
. The money never appeared, partly because soon after Labour lost the 1979 general election.


Comprehensive

Grammar school status was lost with the advent of comprehensive education. In the early 1990s it became a
grant maintained school Grant-maintained schools or GM schools were state schools in England and Wales between 1988 and 1998 that had opted out of local government control, being funded directly by a grant from central government. Some of these schools had selective a ...
. The facilities are used for external summer schools. In August 1998, seven children from London on a course run by a special needs charity were taken to the
Norfolk and Norwich Hospital The Norfolk and Norwich Hospital stood on a site in St Stephen's Road, Norwich, Norfolk, England. Founded in 1771, it closed in 2003 after its services had been transferred to the new Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. Many of the building ...
after being stung by a swarm of non-native
Median wasp The median wasp (''Dolichovespula media'') is a species of social wasp of the family Vespidae found throughout Europe and Asia. It builds aerial paper nests often in shrubs or trees, and occasionally under the eaves of buildings. It is most commo ...
s. On 9 March 1990, the
Duke of Edinburgh Duke of Edinburgh, named after the city of Edinburgh in Scotland, was a substantive title that has been created three times since 1726 for members of the British royal family. It does not include any territorial landholdings and does not produc ...
visited the school.


Academy

In 2010 the school became an
academy An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...
as part of the
Academies Act 2010 An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...
. In 2016 the DfE recognised the college as being in the top 100 schools nationally on each of the main three measures, attainment, EBACC pass rate and Value added progress. The college was awarded world class school status in November 2015. In 2016 it was the founding school of a new multi-academy trust, the Sapientia Education Trust. The Trust grew in size to 17 schools by June 2022. The College won the ‘UK secondary school’ of the year award at the national teaching awards in November 2021.


Wymondham College Prep School

In 2019, the Sapientia Education Trust announced plans to unveil a new, purpose-built building to house a new preparatory school for children from reception to Year 6, led by Mr Simon Underhill, with a vision to fostering 'development for the whole child'. Despite initial plans to purchase adjacent farmland for the Prep School, the College began construction on the former site of the Cavell Hall lawn, by the
Morgan Sindall Group Morgan Sindall Group plc is a leading British Construction & Regeneration group, headquartered in London employing around 6,700 employees and operating in the public, regulated and private sectors. It reports through six divisions of Constructi ...
. The Prep School has had a varied reception among parents, students, alumni and the wider boarding school community, with some hailing the innovation and convenience it would provide for working parents, while others have questioned the ethics of sending a child away to boarding school at such a young age, although boarding only starts at Year 5. The new building opened in September 2021, together with Underwood Hall the new boarding house. Like Wymondham College, the school is heavily oversubscribed.


House system

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 ...
was first established in 1953, with house names North, South, East and West. As the College expanded and brick-built accommodation came into use in the early 1960s, the system was revised and the Houses were given names of cathedral cities: * Boys:
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
,
Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
,
Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...
, Norwich,
Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
,
Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...
* Girls:
Wells Wells most commonly refers to: * Wells, Somerset, a cathedral city in Somerset, England * Well, an excavation or structure created in the ground * Wells (name) Wells may also refer to: Places Canada *Wells, British Columbia England * Wells ...
,
Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...
,
Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...
,
Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
(with
Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...
and Washington added later) When mixed Houses were introduced in the early 1970s, the cathedral House names were scrapped and the Houses adopted the names of the Halls themselves. Lincoln and Peel Halls were converted to Sixth Form boarding houses in 1978, Peel Hall being further converted into a boarding house for Year Sevens in 1995. The house system was as follows: * Year Seven: Peel * Years Eight to Eleven: Fry, Cavell, Kett or New * Years Twelve to Thirteen: Lincoln As of the 2010–2011 academic year, Peel started to retain some year 7 students in order to become a 'main school house'. Under the new system, the houses appear so: *Years Seven to Eleven: Cavell, Kett, Fry, New or Peel *Years Twelve to Thirteen: Lincoln


Boarding school

Ofsted inspected the residential accommodation in 2019 and confirmed it remains 'outstanding'.


Archaeology

In January 1958, a hoard of 881 Anglo Saxon (
Edward the Elder Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æt ...
) coins were found at the school when a drain was being dug.


Notable Old Wymondhamians

*
Stephen Byers Stephen John Byers (born 13 April 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wallsend between 1992 and 1997, and North Tyneside from 1997 to 2010. He served in the Cabinet from 1998 to 2002, and was ...
, Labour MP for
North Tyneside North Tyneside is a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It forms part of the greater Tyneside conurbation. North Tyneside Council is headquartered at Cobalt Park, Wallsend. North Tyneside is bordered b ...
from
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until
2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
, former
Chief Secretary to the Treasury The chief secretary to the Treasury is a ministerial office in the government of the United Kingdom. The office is the second most senior in the Treasury, after the chancellor of the Exchequer. The office was created in 1961, to share the burden ...
,
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry The secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The incumbent is a memb ...
, and Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in the
Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...
* Colin Self, artist (1952–1959) *
Trudy Stevenson Lottie Gertrude Stevenson ( née Bevier; 16 September 1944 – 24 August 2018) was a Zimbabwean ambassador and politician. She was a member of parliament for Harare North in the Parliament of Zimbabwe. She was also a founding member of the Move ...
, Zimbabwe Ambassador to Senegal (1955–1962) *
Peter Rogers Peter Rogers (20 February 1914 – 14 April 2009) was an English film producer. He is best known for his involvement in the making of the ''Carry On'' series of films. Life and career Rogers began his career as a journalist for his loc ...
CBE, Chief Executive since 2003 of
Babcock International Babcock International Group plc is a British aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company based in London, England. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main b ...
Group plc (1959–1966) * Patsy Calton Lib Dem for MP for Cheadle from 2001 to 2005 (1960–1967) * Mark Brayne,
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
foreign correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...
and psychotherapist *
Nicholas Crane Nicholas Crane (born 6 May 1954) is an English geographer, explorer, writer and broadcaster. Since 2004 he has written and presented four television series for BBC Two: ''Coast'', ''Great British Journeys'', '' Map Man'' and ''Town''. Early ...
, explorer and writer (1965–1972) *
Norman Lamb Sir Norman Peter Lamb (born 16 September 1957) is a British politician and solicitor. He was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for North Norfolk from 2001 to 2019, and was the chair of the Science and Technology Select Committee ...
, Liberal Democrat MP from 2001 for
North Norfolk North Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Cromer. The population at the 2011 Census was 101,149. History The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972. It was a ...
,
Minister of State for Care and Support The secretary of state for health and social care, also referred to as the health secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the work of the Department of Health and Social Care. The incumbent ...
(1969–76) *
Justin Edrich Justin Wells Edrich (born 17 January 1961) is a former English cricketer who played in five List A matches for Suffolk County Cricket Club. He is the son of Bill Edrich and was a right-handed batsman who captained his school cricket team at W ...
, cricketer (1972–1977) *
Mike Gascoyne Michael Robert Gascoyne (born 2 April 1963) is a British Formula One designer and engineer. Gascoyne has worked for numerous Grand Prix teams including McLaren, Sauber, Tyrrell, Jordan (later known as Midland F1, Spyker, Force India, Racing P ...
, Technical Director of Lotus F1 Racing (1974–1981) *
Mark Strong Mark Strong (born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia; 5 August 1963), is a British actor, best known for his film roles such as Prince Septimus in '' Stardust'' (2007), Archibald in ''RocknRolla'' (2008), Lord Henry Blackwood in ''Sherlock Holmes'' (20 ...
, actor in ''
Our Friends in the North ''Our Friends in the North'' is a British television drama serial produced by the BBC. It was originally broadcast in nine episodes on BBC2 in early 1996. Written by Peter Flannery, it tells the story of four friends from Newcastle upon Tyne o ...
'', and narrator of ''
Who Do You Think You Are Who Do You Think You Are may refer to: Television series * ''Who Do You Think You Are?'' (British TV series), a genealogy documentary with many adaptations: ** ''Who Do You Think You Are?'' (American TV series) ** ''Who Do You Think You Are?'' ...
'' (1975-1982) *
Adam Rayner Adam Chance Abbs Rayner (born 28 August 1977) is an English actor. He is known for television roles including: Dominic Montgomery in ''Mistresses'', Dr. Steve Shaw in ''Hawthorne'', Aidan Marsh in '' Hunted'', Bassam "Barry" Al-Fayeed in ''Tyran ...
, actor in ''
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'' (1998) * Will Evans, rugby union player for
Harlequin F.C. Harlequins (officially Harlequin Football Club) is a professional rugby union club that plays in Premiership Rugby, the top level of English rugby union. Their home ground is the Twickenham Stoop, located in Twickenham, south-west London. Foun ...
(2019–present) *
George Worth George Vitéz Worth (born György Woittitz; April 1, 1915 – January 15, 2006) was a Hungarian-born American sabre Olympic medalist fencer. Early and personal life Worth was born György Woittitz in Budapest, Hungary, and was Jewish. Because ...
, rugby union player for
Leicester Tigers Leicester Tigers (officially Leicester Football Club) are a professional rugby union club based in Leicester, England. They play in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby. The club was founded in 1880 and since 1892 plays its hom ...
(2016–present)


Wymondham Grammar School

* Sir Frederick William Wilson, Liberal MP from 1895 to 1906 for
Mid Norfolk Mid Norfolk is a List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies, constituency represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, UK Parliament since 2010 by George Freeman (po ...
(1855–62)


References


External links


Official site
{{authority control Academies in Norfolk Boarding schools in Norfolk Educational institutions established in 1951 South Norfolk Defunct grammar schools in England 1951 establishments in England Secondary schools in Norfolk Wymondham, Norfolk State funded boarding schools in England