Holy Family Catholic High School is a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

comprehensive school A comprehensive school is a secondary school for pupils aged 11–16 or 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 restricted on the basis ...

situated in Thornton,

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, catering for mixed pupils aged 11–18. The current intake at the school is 885, of which 156 are aged 16–18 pursuing

further education Further education (often abbreviated FE) in the United Kingdom and Ireland is additional education to that received at secondary school that is distinct from the higher education (HE) offered in universities and other academic institutions. It ...

in the school's own

sixth form In the education systems of Barbados, England, Jamaica, Northern Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago, Wales, and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepa ...

, with student attainment Year 13 above average in 2004, compared with all sixth forms nationally.What OFSTED said in 2005
''Schools.ik.com'', March 2005

History

Holy Family converted from a secondary modern to a comprehensive during the late 1970s, and was formerly known as St Joseph's. The catchment area for pupils during the 1970s and 1980s was predominantly from the nearby towns of Formby, Freshfield and Crosby. This was the nearest RC High School that these pupils could attend after leaving junior school. Many pupils now come from areas such as

Bootle Bootle (pronounced ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England, which had a population of 51,394 in 2011; the wider Bootle (UK Parliament constituency), Parliamentary constituency had a population of 98,449. It is pa ...

and Seaforth and fewer come from Formby due to improvements made by the schools there. The school was victim of an arson attack in 1994, with the culprits believed to have gained access via a boarded up window. An art room suffered mostly smoke damage, with fire fighting crews on site for around two hours.

Redevelopment proposals

Reports in 1992 suggested that a developer was interested in buying the school's site, which would involve relocating the school to an alternate location nearby. The school's governors noted that a meeting had taken place with a developer interested in redeveloping the grounds and demolishing the existing school, which was considered by the governing body as lacking in facilities and only barely adequate. Several months later in late 1992, the development plans had been announced as being withdrawn, following opposition by over a thousand campaigners against plans to build a supermarket on the site. The proposals had been expected to be refused permission by

Sefton Council Sefton Council, or Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council, is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It is a metropolitan borough council and provides the majority of local government services in the borou ...

within 24 hours if they had gone through to the decision stage. Opposition was also raised regarding the proposed new site for the school, which was designated

greenbelt A green belt or greenbelt is a policy, and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or gree ...

land. The following year, the ''Crosby Herald'' reported of

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is a British supermarket and the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company was the largest UK r ...

intention to move from the nearby Crosby Village to a new store on the school's site, with contracts having already been signed with developers. The retailer announced that they intended upon purchasing the site if the school could find a suitable alternate location, subject to planning permission being granted. The planning chief of Sefton Council remarked his intention to oppose any application from Sainsbury's, given the council's policy of not developing upon greenbelt land.

20th century

Matthew Symes is the School's headteacher, a position that he has held since September 2012. In June 2014, the new School Dance Studio opened.

References

External links

* {{authority control Secondary schools in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton Catholic secondary schools in the Archdiocese of Liverpool Voluntary aided schools in England