Established 1968 Chairman of Governors Brian Armstrong Founded 1968 | Phone +44 1228 516051 | |
Headteacher Derek Kay & Sheila Johnston Religious head Very Revd Mark Boyling (Dean of Carlisle) Address Strand Rd, Carlisle CA1 1JB, UK Number of students 1,550 (350 in the 6th form) Similar Carlisle College, Caldew School, William Howard School C, Central Academy, Newman Catholic School | ||
Trinity School (formerly Carlisle Grammar School) is a large mixed secondary school and sixth form in Carlisle, Cumbria, for students aged 11 to 18. Since September 2011, it has been an academy. It is a Church of England school with strong links to Carlisle Cathedral.
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History
In 685 AD St Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, visited Carlisle and founded both a school and a church. For the next 900 years the school continued around the grounds of the Cathedral.
In 1545 Lancelot Salkeld, The Dean and Head of Chapter of Carlisle Cathedral took on responsibility for the school in the Cathedral close. The Cathedral was rededicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. The school occupied buildings on West Walls, some of which are part of the diocesan offices to this day.
Grammar school
In 1883 it became Carlisle Grammar School and moved to Strand Road, into what is now the Carliol Building of the school, housing the Sixth Form Centre. Since that time, governors continue to be appointed by the Cathedral Foundation. The analogous girls' school was Carlisle County School for Girls, which became St Aidan's County High School.
Comprehensive
As the movement towards comprehensive schools took shape, in 1968 the grammar school amalgamated with two local schools, the Margaret Sewell School (for girls) and the Creighton School (for boys), to become Trinity School, a Church of England comprehensive school, with all of the sites along Strand Road.
In the 1990s, Trinity School became grant-maintained, until 1999 when it became a Church of England Voluntary Aided School.
In 1998 the school was awarded Specialist School status and was designated as a Language College.
Recent developments include an increasingly international perspective, shown in the Uganda Project, the USA Exchange Scheme, and many overseas visits and links.
The school became a Church of England converter academy in September 2011.
House system
The 11- to 16-year-old students are grouped in smaller family units known as houses. Houses are named after two rivers and two mountains, Amazon, Everest, Kilimanjaro and Nile. Each House has an area of the school for its own use. Students normally remain in the same House for five years, with the same Form Tutor and the same Head of House and House Tutor.
Facilities
The £20m rebuilding scheme of the 11-16 school was completed in September 2012.
The Armstrong Building
This new building was opened in 2011 as the new Science and Technology centre for the school. It was the major part of the £20m rebuild programme that was officially opened by HRH the Duke of Kent in October 2012.
The Chapman Library
This purpose-built Library is the main school library. It was opened in 2001 and is named after the former Chair of Governors, Canon Rex Chapman. It has a stock of over 10,000 items including fiction, non fiction and reference books, as well as networked computers.
The Carliol Library
This library is a learning resource centre with study areas designed for exclusive use by sixth form students. It has three comfortable areas for silent individual study, quiet collaborative work and research. As well as a large stock of fiction, non-fiction and reference books, the library offers computing facilities, and laptops which students can borrow for study use.
Ofsted and academic performance
In 2009 the Ofsted inspection concluded, "Trinity School provides its students with a good education... the quality of the teaching and learning is good". In its February 2012 inspection, Trinity was judged to be "good" in all categories.