Mary Hare School is a residentialco-educational Non-Maintained special school for deaf pupils in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It consists of around 230 pupils from year 7 to year 13. It was established by Mary Adelaide Hare in 1916 as Dene Hollow School for the Deaf in Burgess Hill, West Sussex. After Mary Hare's death on 5 November 1945, it was redesignated as Mary Hare Grammar School for the Deaf on 1 January 1946. The school bought Arlington Manor and surrounding estates in 1947, and moved from its old site in Burgess Hill to the refurbished premises in 1949. Several building projects have since followed, expanding the school to its current size, including a classroom block, school hall, boarding house for boys, staff flats, new updated swimming pool, science block, sixth form campus, arts and design centre, Arlington Arts Centre which includes a theatre seating 250, music therapy centre, and recording studio. The newest project underway is a boarding house for year 11 pupils, called Murray House, which was completed in 2012. The swimming pool appeal was started in 2014 with completed renovation in 8 months of the swimming pool in March 2017, with the replacement of the old rusted away roof. The school teaches a variety of subjects at GCSE and A level, and guarantees a good solid education for deaf children, many of whom go onto university and other further education. The communication policy is oral, that is, sign language is not used in class. Some students may use sign language outside of class: the "speech competition", a compulsory contest within the school to encourage speech and discourage signing, was abolished sometime in the 1980s. The school itself is now a small part of a company by the name of Mary Hare Limited, consisting ofMary Hare Secondary and Mary Hare Sixth Form. Other divisions are Mary Hare Primary, Arlington Labs, Mary Hare Training Services, Mary Hare Foundation, Arlington Arts Centre, and Mary Hare Hearing Centres. The current school principal is Peter Gale.
