Wilmslow High School


Wilmslow High School is a mixed-sex 11–18 comprehensive secondary school in Wilmslow, Cheshire, and a designated Centre of Excellence. The school began in 1960 as a grammar school and gradually became a comprehensive school, becoming Wilmslow High School in 1991. Dr. James Pullé is the head teacher. The school is designated "good" by Ofsted.

History

Grammar school

Wilmslow High School began life as the co-educational Wilmslow County Grammar School in September 1960 with 900 pupils. The new county grammar school was opened by Sir James Mountford, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool on 24 March 1961. A girls' grammar school was built on of the former Colshaw Hall Farm, and situated on Dean Row Road. It opened in 1965 and had 750 girls. The school on Holly Road became an all-boys' school.

Comprehensive

Wilmslow Boys' Grammar School became Harefield County High School when it became a sixth form-entry comprehensive in 1978, gradually becoming more comprehensive. Wilmslow Girls' Grammar School became Dean Row County High School. In the mid-1980s it became Wilmslow County High School, then Wilmslow High School in 1991. The school was designated a Specialist Sports College in September 2003, but the specialist schools programme ended in 2010; therefore the school is no longer a Specialist Sports College, despite still being advertised as such.
Other former schools in Wilmslow included Wilmslow County Secondary School for Girls on Wycliffe Avenue in Wilmslow. When the Wycliffe Avenue Secondary Modern School closed the girls moved to Thorngrove County High School, which was until that point the Hough Secondary Modern School for Boys, having previously opened in 1965 on Thorngrove Road – the land now occupied by the A34 bypass. Later, all schools closed, leaving Wilmslow with one high school on the site of the original boys' grammar school.

Extracurricular activities

The school operates the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, and a bi-annual "World Challenge" expedition is available to older students, which for the last three years has been run through Camps International. Competitive sport is a feature of the school's extracurricular programme "Sports Xtra". In 2016, School Sport Magazine ranked the school 6th best sporting state school in the country.

Academic performance

The school is currently designated "good" by Ofsted, who reviewed the school in 2013; this is a drop from their previous position of "outstanding" in 2011. As of 2016, 75% of students achieve a C or better in both English and maths, and the average A level grade attained by students is a C. Although the school is below national average according to the government's "Progress 8" metric, they have an "Attainment 8" score above national average. This means that while its students make less progress than the national average, due to starting at a higher level they still achieve better than average results.

Learning support

The school's Learning Support provision includes an 8-place unit for children who have impaired hearing. The school is leading a Local Education Authority project relating to provision for autistic students and the Autism Resource Provision Team won the Inspirational Education Provision award at the 2020 Autism Professional Awards.

Notable former pupils