Marple Hall School

Grammar school

The co-educational comprehensive school was originally Marple Hall County Grammar School, a grammar school, which was built in 1960 by Cheshire Education Committee on the demolished remains of Marple Hall, a manor house once owned by John Bradshaw who signed the death warrant of Charles I of England, and Charles Isherwood whose family also owned the house. The ruins of the house are still visible just outside the grounds of the school. These two figures give their names to the two main buildings of the modern school.

The grammar school later had separate boys and girls schools. Marple Hall County Grammar School for Girls opened in 1965 and had 750 girls in 1967, and 1000 by 1971. Marple Hall Grammar School for Boys had 1000 boys in 1972. In 1967 the girls school had a six form entry. The head teacher of the girls school up to 1974 was Miss Una Drake.

Comprehensive

The school was converted into the mixed sex Marple Hall County High School in September 1974 with a nine form entry. The joint headmaster, Derek J Saville, was appointed in September 1973. It was originally to be called Marple Hall County Comprehensive. From April 1974, the school was administered by Stockport MBC. The new school taught Russian in the sixth form and had 1900 boys and girls, with 450 in the sixth form. From 1974 until 1980, the school had comprehensive year groups and grammar (selective intake) year groups. The last selective intake, from entry in 1973, left in 1980; the first year group of comprehensive intake left in 1979 (after GCE O levels) and 1981 (after GCE A levels).

Following Mr Saville's retirement, the sixth form was closed in 1989 after the arrival of the new Head, Margaret Cuckson. Miss Cuckson remained at Headteacher until 2004 when she was replaced by Mrs Lesley Calderbank and under whose tenure the school was in the news for having a year nine Maths class being taught by ten different teachers in two terms. The previous Head, Dr Rose Hegan, took over in September 2010. Dr Hegan resigned in 2013 to be replaced by Mr Joseph Barker who had been working at the school as a history teacher and deputy head prior to Dr Hegan's resignation. The school was again in the news in September 2015 after sending home up to 100 students for having incorrect uniforms.

Timetable

The current timetable at Marple Hall is split between two different weeks which alternate, red and blue. The distribution of lessons is uneven, for example, English, Maths and Science lessons are much more frequent than subjects such as Art, Technology and Games, often as much as double sometimes Quadruple at KS4.

The day is split into five hour-long lessons, or periods. There is a 20-minute break between periods two and three and a 40-minute-long lunch between periods three and four for Year 10 and 11 students and between periods four and five for Year 7 and 9 students, this system was adopted in 2016. All students take lunchtime between periods three and four during exam season. Pupils also have a 15-minute 'form time' before period 1 where they receive information about room changes, clubs and are given letters to take home.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays form time is extended by 20 minutes, creating an 'Accelerated Day' which the first four periods are five minutes shorter to accommodate. During this extended form time students are given a short presentation by their form tutor on a range of social and personal issues and occasionally ones in light of extraordinary recent events to answer any questions the students may have. This extended form has essentially replaced the hour of PSHE students used to get in Years 7, 10 and 11.

Uniform

The Marple Hall school uniform is a navy blue blazer with the school's logo on the pocket, a black or navy blue jumper with the school's logo on and a white shirt. The tie is navy blue with a white school logo and four diagonal stripes of purple, yellow, red and green, representing the four houses at the school. Trousers must be charcoal grey and students must wear black 'school shoes'. Trainers are not permitted and since September 2015 any student wearing incorrect uniform is sent home to change and not permitted to return to school until correct uniform is worn. This change has caused some students to leave the school in protest, either becoming home-schooled or moving to another nearby school.

For Games, students must wear a light blue polo shirt with the school's logo. They may also wear a school rugby reversible top or a navy blue fleece with the school's logo. Students must wear either navy blue or black tracksuit bottoms or for boys a pair of dark blue shorts with the school's logo and for girls, a skirt with the school's logo. Students must also have navy blue socks and a pair of trainers but not pumps. They are expected to bring shinpads and a mouthguard when appropriate.

School Houses and Reward System

The school currently uses a house system to categorise its students. Each house has around three forms from each school year which roughly amounts to a quarter of the pupils at the school per house. All the houses are named after tributaries of the nearby River Goyt and all have a distinct colour which until July 2015 was represented on the school tie of each individual pupil in the form of coloured stripes. The four houses are Derwent (purple), Errwood (red), Fernilee (green) and Linnet (yellow). Whilst in previous years pupils would often partake in activities with their house and would have a head of house and pastoral manager assigned to their house, now the school generally splits the pupils by year with a head of year and pastoral manager for the year group, not the house, and houses are mainly only used as teams on Sports days and in inter-house sports competitions.

The reward system is currently based on a series of badges that are awarded by each faculty at the end of term which are awarded to pupils who show exceptional behaviour, effort or achievement in a particular subject. If a pupil has received no detentions by the end of a week they are entered into a raffle and a pupil from each form is drawn out and given a £5 voucher by way of reward. All the pupils who do not receive a detention throughout a whole school year are entered into a draw to win a prize, currently an iPad.

Notable alumni

Marple Hall Grammar School for Boys