Stretford Grammar School

Admissions

The school has a sixth form in addition to years 7 to 11. Almost two-thirds of the school's pupils are from minority ethnic backgrounds, and approximately 30% of all pupils have a first language other than English, significantly above the national average.

History

The first head master was Albert Dakin. The first foundation stone of the school was laid on 1 July 1927. The building was to cost £40,745, and was built by Lancashire County Council. The boys' school opened on 12 September 1928, being officially opened on 23 October 1928 by Eustace Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Newcastle, and was situated on Great Stone Road west of Lancashire's cricket ground. The girls' grammar school was called Stretford Girls' High School on Herbert Street which opened in 1923. In January 1941 the site of the girls' school was totally destroyed by bombing. Nearby Trafford Park produced important materials for the war, not least Rolls-Royce Merlin engines made at Ford's factory. A new girls' school was built on a different site near Longford Park and south of Edge Lane (A5145): the former site was turned into playing fields. The school was administered by the Stretford Divisional Executive of the Lancashire Education Committee. From April 1974, it was administered by Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council.

In 1959 at the boys' school, 18-year-old David Murray Jones of Urmston, a goalkeeper in a seven-a-side football match collapsed and died of a fractured skull. There was a meningitis outbreak at the former boys' school in December 1971.

Until its merger in 1986 with Stretford Grammar School for Boys, it had been known since 1960 as Stretford Grammar School for Girls (both schools change their name at the same time). The site of the boys' grammar school then became Stretford High School, a community secondary school.

In 1988 there were plans to build a CTC on the boys' school site, which were dropped. At the time of the merger, six secondary schools closed in Trafford, with the loss of 4,500 school places.

In 2012, the school announced a £250,000 project to renovate the school fields into a state-of-the-art sports facility. The current headteacher is Michael Mullins. The school has vastly improved under his leadership.

School crest

The school's crest is embroidered on blazers and jumpers. The original crest, designed by pupils in the late 1990s, consisted of a shield featuring a globe and books, with a fist clenching lightning, taken from the Stretford coat of arms. The motto beneath read "Power through Knowledge". That crest was replaced by a maroon circle containing the school's initials, in lower case: when the school was awarded Science College status in 2005, the logo was altered to include a symbolic atom above the initials. This logo is now defunct and has been replaced with a renewed version of the previous crest.

Academic performance

Academically the school exam results are above national averages, with 92% of pupils achieving A*–C in at least five GCSEs (including English and Mathematics). The school's value add score is below the local authority average. In March 2009, Stretford became the first grammar school in the UK to be placed under special measures, following a damning Ofsted report, which cited low level behaviour problems, inadequate teaching, and poor leadership and management. The action came weeks after the then headmaster, Peter Cookson, resigned after a period of extended sick leave. The school had been assessed as "satisfactory" in its March 2006 Ofsted report, and left Special Measures Status in March 2010. In 2012, two thirds of students achieved the difficult target of 5A/A* grades; in addition a quarter of students achieved at least 10 grades at A/A*.

Notable former pupils

Peter Noone 1959-64.Singer Herman's Hermits 1964-date