History of St. Bees School
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The History of St. Bees School encompasses more than four hundred years of British history.
It was founded in 1583 as a Free Grammar School by the dying Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal, who refused to resign his position until Elizabeth I agreed to sign the school into existence. After extremely modest beginnings, the school gradually expanded over the years despite its remote location in St. Bees, the most westerly point of Northern England. Despite the best attempts of Grindal to give the school a secure financial grounding, the finances have always been characterised by "boom and bust" peaks - for many years the school effectively ran on mining royalties and after these dried up the school had to be rescued from closure by a syndicate of its former pupils. Many Old St. Beghians have served and fought for their country, and the school is extremely proud of the three Victoria Cross winners it educated. During the 1970s St. Bees School became coeducational and until closure had a substantial foreign segment of the pupil population.
The school formally closed in July 2015,[1] though on 20 March 2017 it was announced that the school will re-open in September 2018 in a partnership with Full Circle Education, a South East Asian education group.[2] In April 2018 it was announced that the school would open initially with a cohort of Year 7 students to nurture the culture of the school from the ground up and to establish organic growth year on year. In 2018 summer, it was announced that the new teaching team is in place and the school opening ceremony will be held on 6 September 2018 following a major refurbishment.[3]