Tettenhall College

Tettenhall College
Address
Wood Road Tettenhall Wolverhampton , West Midlands , WV6 8QX England
Information
Type	Mixed
Motto	Timor Domini Initium Sapientiae (The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom)
Religious affiliation(s)	Christian
Established	1863
Local authority	Wolverhampton
Head teacher	Dr PC Bodkin
Gender	Co-educational
Age	1 to 19
Enrollment	1000 including drive/lower/upper schools
Houses	(Upper and Lower schools only) Bantock   Haydon   Pearson   Nicholson
Colour(s)	Blue & Light Blue
Website	http://www.tettenhallcollege.co.uk

Tettenhall College is a private day and boarding school located in the Wolverhampton suburb of Tettenhall.

History

The College was founded in 1863 by a group of prominent local businessmen and industrialists, most of who were associated with the Queen Street Congregational Church. Tettenhall Towers was built by Thomas Thorneycroft as a house for him and his family. The Towers Theatre was originally a ballroom and has springs under the floor to make it a better dancing surface. The stage was built later on for the school when it started. The school was sold by the last member of the Thorneycroft family in 1942. The college now has a new lower school building finished in September 2000 and a new science department which finished around July 2007.

The school grounds including a large wood, two football and rugby pitches and a cricket square. The woodland walk around the grounds takes about ninety minutes. The school pitches have a problem with being waterlogged as they are built on a bed of clay which quickly becomes saturated.

Ofsted Report

The Schools latest Ofsted inspection took place on 01/05/2008. The report was published on 02/06/2008, the school received an overall quality rating of satisfactory. The recommendations for improvement were:

• ensure that written parental permission has been obtained in advance for the administration of first aid.

• ensure crockery, cutlery and dining facilities are clean, and that the quality and quantity of food is sufficient to meet the needs of all boarders.

• ensure that no unacceptable punishments are used by staff, this relates to the setting of repetitive lines.

• ensure the school's system for recruiting staff (including ancillary staff, contract/sessional staff and volunteers) who will work with boarders includes all of the items listed in standard 38.2 before appointment, which can be verified from recruitment records.

• ensure that boarders have the opportunity to contribute views to the operation of boarding.

• enhance staff and boarder relationships by ensuring that communication between staff and boarders is positive, for example confidentiality is maintained where there is no need for the sharing information.

Boys Boarding House

The Boys boarding house in Tettenhall College is part of a building which is attached to the school library, dining hall and the chapel. The boarding house contains 4 dormitories and 2 rooms in the middle of the boarding house. There are a mixture of single rooms and shared rooms across the boarding house; the single rooms are quite small with just enough room for a single bed, a cupboard, a desk and a sink. The shared rooms are more open as there is space between the individual sleeping areas, these rooms are more spacious but less private. In the centre of the boarding house, there is a common room; this contains: many sofas, a wall mounted flat screen television, a pool table and a table tennis table. There is also a small kitchen in the common room. This kitchen is often closed by members of staff due to the boarders' poor treatment of the facility.

Alumni

• William Bidlake - Arts & Crafts Architect (1861-1938)
• Group Captain John Collier DSO, DFC and bar - Decorated WWII bomber pilot (1916-2001)
• Professor Sir Arthur Harden FRS - won Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1929 (1865-1940)
• Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Anthony Hughes - Judge (b. 1948)
• Nicholas Jones - former BBC Political Correspondent
• David Sumberg - MEP, former MP (b.1941)
• George Thorne - Liberal MP for Wolverhampton East 1908 - 1929, former Mayor and Alderman of Wolverhampton (1853 - ??)
• Peter Radford - Bronze Medal winner in the 100m and 4 x 100m relay in Rome Olympic Games in 1960
• Mark Speight
• Thomas Morris
• Brigadier Sir Edgar "Bill" Williams (1912–1995) – academic and warrior
• Nigel Bennett - Actor, director, author

External links

• Tettenhall College website
• [1] Book: The History of Tettenhall College by Simon Whild (Matador 2008)