Woodroffe School

History

The Woodroffe School was the brain-child of Alban J. Woodroffe, MBE, JP, a prominent local landowner and educationalist who, in 1932 supervised the construction of the original building on a magnificent hillside site overlooking the harbour town of Lyme Regis. For the first thirty years the school was a small mixed Grammar School drawing students from a wide rural and coastal area of West Dorset and East Devon. In 1950, a decision was taken to add boarding houses to the school with strong links being formed with Armed Services parents and those working overseas. In 1962 the Grammar School was re-organised into an 11 - 18 mixed Comprehensive School serving two-hundred square miles or so around Lyme Regis. The school continued to take boarders, who were accommodated on three separate sites and in September 1991 became Grant Maintained. Today there are 1000 students on roll (Sixth Form 200) but boarding has been phased out in line with the national decline in demand for places. The school assumed Foundation status in September 1999.

Development between 1999 and 2010

The school retained most of its pre-grammar school facilities until 2010 when the school's swimming pool was closed and a number of former rooms converted into computer 'IT' suites. There were plans drawn up in the late 1990s, following the closure of Allhallows, Rousdon, and other private schools in the area due (mainly to declining pupil numbers in these smaller schools) for newer buildings to be established on 'top pitch' but this never came to anything. A number of the former huts on the site have also been upgraded. It was also during this time that the school received arts college status as well as gaining OFSTED 'Outstanding' status.