Our Lady's R.C. High School was a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

and sixth form for 11- to 18-year-olds, located in

Royton Royton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 21,284 in 2011. Close to the source of the River Irk, near undulating land at the foothills of the South Pennines, it is northwest of Ol ...

, in the

Metropolitan Borough of Oldham The Metropolitan Borough of Oldham is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in England. It is named after its largest town, Oldham. The borough had a population of in , making it the sixth-largest district by population in Greater Manch ...

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. The school was a specialist school in Mathematics and Computing, and contained over 80 members of staff, with over 1200 students. The

sixth form college A sixth form college (pre-university college in Malaysia) is an educational institution, where students aged 16 to 19 study typically for advanced post-school level qualifications such as GCE Advanced Level, A Levels, Business and Technology Edu ...

offered 19 (as of the 2007/08 academic year) courses. The school had a dispute in 2010 after Headteacher R. Whittaker was suspended. His Deputy Headteacher, C. Spillaine became Acting Headteacher, but left the school at the end of 2010 after disagreements with the students. The most recent Headteacher was Mr Thornton who left when the school merged with St Augustine of Canterbury RC High School to form

Blessed John Henry Newman RC College Newman Catholic College or, in full, Saint John Henry Newman RC College is a coeducational Roman Catholic secondary school located in Chadderton, in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England under the Roman Catholic Diocese ...

, a joint Roman Catholic School.

History

The school was founded in 1961 as a

secondary modern school A secondary modern school () is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Secondary modern schools accommodated the majority (70–75%) of pupil ...

with 259 pupils. The first head teacher was Eric Critchley. In 1979, further building took place for the school to become an 11-16 comprehensive school for 700 pupils. In 1985, the school's sixth form college opened, converting the school into an 11-18 comprehensive school. The sixth form then had only 11 students. In 1986, the school was reorganised as part of an Oldham Roman Catholic Schools' reorganisation prompting further building work and raising the school's capacity to 800 pupils. The school was last inspected by

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in May 2010. In 2010 Glyn Potts, Head of Public Services at Our Lady's RC High School was awarded the 'Inspirational Educators' prize in the 'Further and Higher Education' category by the

Company of Educators The Worshipful Company of Educators is the 109th livery company of the City of London, having been granted livery status on 10 September 2013 by the Court of Aldermen. The Company was founded on 24 May 2001 as a Guild to represent the education ...

, one of the London

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Notable alumni

Nick Grimshaw Nicholas Peter Andrew Grimshaw (born 14 August 1984), nicknamed "Grimmy", is an English broadcaster and author. He became known for having hosted a variety of shows on BBC Radio 1. He is also known as a television presenter for his Channel 4 rol ...

References

{{authority control Defunct Catholic schools in the Diocese of Salford Defunct schools in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham Educational institutions established in 1961 Educational institutions disestablished in 2011 1961 establishments in England 2011 disestablishments in England