St Andrew's Church of England High School


St Andrew's C of H High School is an Anglican voluntary aided school in Central Croydon, Greater London. The school is part of the educational provision of the Diocese of Southwark and the London Borough of Croydon.

History

Saint Andrew's school was opened in the summer of 1861 by Reverend Fitzroy John Fitzwygram, inititally in rented rooms behind St Andrew's Church in Lower Coombe Street and next to the Surrey Cricketers public house. His intention was to provide education for the working class. By December of the following year permanent building for boys and girls, as well as an infants schools were opened in Southbridge Road. However, the Whitgift school foundation opened a Whitgift Poor School for boys nearby, which later became known as Trinity School of John Whitgift, and in the summer of 1864 the boys school closed owing to lack of numbers. The girls' school expanded into the vacated buildings.
In 1893 the Whitgift Poor School changed its focus, and became an aspirational school for the middle classes. Funding was therefore sought to re-open the Saint Andrew's boys school. At the same time, inspectors found the other buildings to be too small and so the whole school was rebuilt.

Reverend Fitzroy John Fitzwygram

The Reverend Fitzroy John Fitzwygram ran the parish of St Andrew's, Croydon, for about 18 months during the absence of the first vicar, Rev. H. R. Reynolds. He was born in 1827 the fourth son to Sir R. F. Fitzwygram, baronet of Leigh Park.. One of his brothers became a military General and an MP. The family were wealthy and had always taken a benevolent interest in their local community. Fitzwygram may have been generous with his wealth but he most certainly did not believe in ‘hand-outs’ for the poor. His strategy was much more to ‘empower’ them.
Seeing the needs of the parish of St Andrew's, within a month of arriving in Croydon in mid-1861 he had hired a temporary schoolroom and raised over half of the £110 needed to convert the room and set it up as a school. Most of this money was either his own, or from close family members. News of his project was reported as the first piece of Croydon News in the very first issue of the Croydon Times, established on 29 June 1861. His intention was to set up a school for the ‘middle classes’ i.e. a ‘middle’ school for which families would pay a few pence a week for their children to attend. This would be self-supporting financially, and eventually be capable of also housing an ‘Industrial School’ for the working classes. They would still have to pay but at a much lower rate. The idea was that the poor received a good education, but at a rate that they could afford. This was in direct contrast to the local Ragged School which was funded by charitable donations and provided a form of free education and often food and clothing to the poorest children. However, the poor quality of education at the Ragged School was a cause of much controversy in the Croydon Times, the local paper, leading eventually to an editorial.
The insistence that even the poor had to pay some thing was most definitely not because Fitzwygram did not care about the poor, but rather that he wanted to show them how to work their way out of poverty. For example, to help the poorest in Croydon - those labourers who maybe only had work during the summer months - he set up a ‘coal club’ so that families could pay during the summer months for the sacks of coal they would need during the winter months. He was a regular visitor at the school, spending at least two hours there every Monday morning.
He campaigned enthusiastically in the local press for funds to complete the building of the purpose-built schools and by Nov 1861 a site had been secured between Old Town and Church Road, very close to the Church. Within a year, the schools were completed and formally opened at the beginning of Dec 1862.
Just one month later, the Revd Fitzwygram suddenly left Croydon and Rev. H. R. Reynolds, the incumbent, or ‘official’ Vicar, returned to take up his post once more. The circumstances surrounding Revd Fitzwygram's departure are not clear, but reports in the local papers indicate that the return of the vicar was an unsettled time for the parish. However, the school was very important to Revd Fitzwygram and the staff and pupils were obviously fond of him. He returned to visit the pupils a couple of weeks later when special gifts of a salver and a silver lead pencil were presented to him and words of appreciation said. The event concluded with the children being allowed home early!

Early Years

The girls’ and infants’ school got off to a very successful start. It was led by a twenty-one year old called Fanny Thornton who, although young, would have already completed a five-year apprenticeship as a pupil monitor before completing two years' training to qualify her to teach. She was assisted by two of her younger sisters. The girls’ and infants’ school opened with 31 pupils but, within four months, numbers had risen to 80. Because schooling for girls was not compulsory until after 1871, there were probably fewer schools for girls in Croydon. At St Andrew's, there were four classes all taught in one room at the same time.
The boys’ school opened with 23 pupils and numbers were never as high as in the girls’ school. This was probably due to the fact that there were more schools for boys in Croydon competing with St Andrew's. Just next door but one, in Church Street, was the Whitgift Poor School which went on to become Trinity School. The head of St Andrew's boys’ school was also a twenty-one year old. His name was Frederic Le Huquet and he came from Guernsey. Croydon Old Town in those days was not a healthy place to live. It was damp in the valley and the housing was often squalid and insanitary with the poor drainage. Smallpox was a common disease amongst the pupils. Mr Le Huquet wrote in the school log-book in 1863 that he had a ’fear of contagion’. This proved sadly prophetic for within ten months of taking up his post as head master of the new St Andrew's school for boys, he died from smallpox.

20th Century

In 1927 the school was reorganised as a single school for the first time. Enrolment increased and education was provided from infants to age 11 in a single school. Within five years the school had to be rebuilt and enlarged to accommodate the numbers, and the offering was extended up to age 14. The Archbishop of Canterbury opened the new school on 28 April 1934. At the time Croydon was still part of the diocese of Canterbury.
Schooling was reorganised in 1951. Primary education was removed from Saint Andrew's and provided in nearby church Primary Schools. Saint Andrew's was then converted to become a Secondary Modern School.
In 1964 the Croydon Flyover was constructed, necessitating the demolition of the school, so once again a new building was constructed, this time on Warrington Road on Duppas Hill, the current location. The school changed status in 1978 from a Secondary modern to a voluntary aided comprehensive school, with a joint entry with Archbishop Tenison's School.

21st Century

The school achieved specialist status for Music in 2006, However the Specialist Schools Programme was dismantled in 2010.

The school today

Headteacher Kerry Target joined the school in September 2015 and then in 2019 OFSTED reported the school's effectiveness was inadequate. A previous OFSTED report had cited the effective measures that the school has in place to support teaching and learning and continue to raise outcomes. In July 2018 mere weeks before the end of term, it was announced that all year 8 and 9 students at St Andrew's would need to find new school places for September and that no new Year 7 students would be admitted. Jonathan Harris, formerly Headteacher at an underperforming secondary school in North Lincolnshire, Thomas Middlecott Academy, took the helm to close the school. As of the start of the 2019–2020 school year, there were 241 students enrolled in the school.
Enrichment
The school's enrichment activities have resulted in increased opportunities for its students, effective outreach with its feeder primary schools and improved student leadership by 2010.
The school has established a theatre company to help students stage regular showcases, including cultural celebrations and concerts. Through its relationship with the British Theatre Academy, the school has seen its pupils perform in the West End in the Colour Purple.
The programme of enrichment and outreach with feeder primary schools sees St Andrew's students leading workshops at feeder primary schools, becoming teachers for the day. The school's STEM programme aims to provide students with a unique STEM focus across the curriculum. As part of this, St Andrew's hosted a ‘Science in Action’ workshop for hundreds of primary school pupils, led by the school's expert science team. The programme gives primary school pupils the opportunity to get hands on with science. Computing is also featured, with primary school pupils creating a one-player computer game.

School Crest

The idea of the St Andrew's crest comes from the Scottish national flag. But has now been changed to another unique logo showing a shield with the white saltire cross of St Andrew on a blue ground. The cross pierces a red five-leafed open coronet. On the under side of the shield is the Latin school motto: per crucem ad coronam.

Sister School

The annual admissions procedure was shared with St Andrew's sister school, Archbishop Tenison's, from 1978 until 2018. When the decision was taken to close St Andrew's, the governors of Archbishop Tenison's were offered the opportunity to expand into the St Andrew's school site. The governor's voted not to do so.

Houses

Students joining the school are assigned to one of five Houses. The school operates a vertical pastoral system: students are placed into a tutor group on joining the school and remain in the same group until the end of Year 10, at which point they move to one of five groups specifically designated for Year 11 students in order that they can be given specific guidance in relation to their GCSE examinations. The House system is being discontinued in September 2016 by the new Headteacher.
Each house at St Andrew's takes its name from a British cathedral, and has a distinct house colour:
In recent years the enrollment at the school has fallen below the published level of 695, with the school no longer offering places to years 7–9. This has impacted on funding and recruitment. Authorities have been looking at the possibility of merger and considering the closure of the school in August 2020.