Tiverton High School

Tiverton High School
Address
Bolham Road Tiverton , Devon , EX16 6SQ England
Coordinates	50°54′39″N 3°29′36″W
Information
Type	Foundation school
Local authority	Devon
Department for Education URN	113548 Tables
Ofsted	Reports
Headteacher	Sammy Crook
Gender	Coeducational
Age	11 to 16
Enrolment	1600
Website	http://www.tiverton.devon.sch.uk/

Tiverton High School is a state secondary school located in the town of Tiverton, Devon, England. The school used to be a specialist visual arts college.

The school is situated on the outskirts of Tiverton, and there is a close working relationship with the nearby Petroc (formerly East Devon College).

The Governors appointed Sammy Crook to succeed Andrew Lovett as the new head-teacher as of September 2016. The school has approximately 1,300 pupils aged 11–16 currently on roll.

History

The school can trace its origins back to 1609 when it was founded thanks to a legacy from the wealthy Tiverton wool and cloth merchant, Robert Chilcott. His will directed his executors ‘to erect and build a school house the walls and covering thereof to be of stone’. This building in St Peter's Street served as the school until 1842, and still stands. For a time it was the home of the Tiverton Museum.
Chilcott was a nephew of, and originally a clerk to, Peter Blundell, another renowned wool merchant in the town, who also left a legacy to start a 'free school' for Tiverton. Peter Blundell’s School went on to become the fee-paying Blundell's School whereas the legacy of Robert Chilcott developed, with other additional charity schools and benefactors, eventually to become the Tiverton Grammar School.
Chilcott's school only admitted boys, but girls were admitted at another establishment, the Blue Coat or Bluecoat School, thanks to public subscription and fundraising.
Following the 1868 Public Schools Act, the Taunton Report of the same year and a Charity Commissioners Scheme for the re-organisation of 'secondary education' in Tiverton, the schools were dissolved and their buildings and endowments used for the establishment of the Tiverton Middle Schools. Further reform came with the Education Acts of 1902 (which created secondary schools) and 1906. The Girls' School, the Boys' Middle School, the Chilcott Educational Foundation and the School of Arts and Science came together in a new building in Barrington Street, providing education for about 150 boys and girls, separately until 1953.
Further wholesale reorganisation of education came in 1977-78, when much of Devon adopted comprehensive education and a three-tier model of First, Middle and Senior schools. Tiverton Grammar School pupils joined their peers at Heathcoat Secondary School on Bolham Road in a new merged, comprehensive school then known simply as Tiverton School, now renamed Tiverton High School.

Computing

The school has three main computer rooms that are used for Computing, Business Studies and IT lessons. Two of these are equipped with Intel NUC machines, the third with Apple iMacs running Windows 7. A fourth computer room is used for Art and Photography lessons, equipped with Apple iMacs running Mac OS X. Additional computers are available for ad-hoc use by students in the school library at break and lunchtimes. Classes are also able to book Apple iPads, Apple iPods and PC laptops from the IT technicians. GCSE Computing lessons make use of Raspberry Pi machines running Debian Linux and an additional set of recycled PCs running Ubuntu Linux. Most of the GCSE Computing programming work is performed on the Raspberry Pi and Ubuntu PCs using GNU C++. At Key Stage 3 students also use Microsoft Small Basic, Python 3, HTML, Microsoft Office, Scratch and Adobe Creative Suite, Students are able to use PCs in one of the main computer rooms at lunchtime during the week. Staff run two additional lunchtime clubs for practical work using the Raspberry Pi and the BBC Micro Bit. The school has hosted several Computing-related workshops and special events in 2016, including the IEEE Faraday Challenge, visitors from Bletchley Park, visitors from a local-web design company and a past-student that now works as a security-consultant. The school has previously hosted hub meetings and training sessions for teachers as part of outreach work in association with Computing At School UK. Students have also taken part in off-site STEM activities organised by the Met Office, the University of Exeter and Exeter College.

Theatre and Art

The school musicals before took place every two years, while other plays take place every year alongside the school's Art Presentations. However, for years now the school have performed productions like West Side Story in 2009, Oliver in 2010, Annie in 2011, Cats in 2012, Scrooge in 2013, Joseph in 2014, Little Shop Of Horrors in December 2015 and "We Will Rock You" will be performed this December. Some plays have also been staged, including "The Yarn, Strangers, The Children's Crusade from the National Youth Theatre, and a modern version of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

External links

• Official website