Calday Grange Grammar School

Calday Grange Grammar School
Calday Grange Grammar School
Location
	West Kirby, Wirral; England
Information
Type	selective all-male secondary and mixed sixth form
Motto	Nisi Dominus Frustra; "Without God, all is in vain"
Established	1636
Founder	William Glegg
Headmaster	Andrew Hall
Grades	7–11, and Sixth Form
Enrolment	1500
Campus	30 acres
Colour(s)	Navy Blue, White, Maroon
Affiliations	Grammar school
Website	[1]

Calday Grange Grammar School (abbreviated to CGGS; also known as Calday,Calday Grange) is a grammar school on Caldy Hill above the town of West Kirby on the Wirral. It is the oldest grammar school in the Wirral and takes boys (and girls for the sixth form). It is a Foundation School and a designated Technology College. The school was founded in 1636.

History

The school was founded in 1636 by William Glegg. Although at first it admitted day and boarding pupils, the boarding house closed in 1934.

Since 1920 much has changed. Rugby was introduced in 1921. Staff and pupils built a swimming pool (still there) in 1922. New buildings have appeared regularly. Following the 1944 Education Act the school became a County Grammar School. In 1946 came a Parents' Association. In 1951 the C.C.F. was founded.

In 1985, a girl who was then studying at West Kirby Grammar School, (the nearby girls' grammar school), wishing to study Law A level, asked the then headmaster Peter Dodd if he would permit her to attend the school's Sixth Form. He agreed and she became the sole girl attending the school in the academic year 1985/1986. The following year the school formally opened the doors of its Sixth Form to female students.

Geography

The school is situated in a residential area of Wirral close to the Dee Estuary. The pupils largely come from the Deeside areas of Wirral. In recent years, however, an increasing number are opting to join from the rest of Wirral and from Cheshire. The main site at the top of Caldy Hill is occupied by the school buildings. A mile down the hill, towards Chester, Calday has playing fields, with 3 functional rugby pitches, a cricket stadium, and a artificial hockey field. Altogether the land occupies 30 acres. The school is surrounded by suburban housing development and the forests of Thurstaston and Caldy.

The present

As of today, the school has around 1500 pupils, roughly 500 of whom are in the Sixth Form. The almost constant construction on the school site has now finished and the completed works include an extension to the dining hall with two teaching rooms below, the creation of two new teaching rooms and a corridor on the chemistry level and most significantly a renovation of the library and the installation of a new technology suite within the library to be used for private study.

Governer	Name
Head	A Hall
Chairman	Mr J Robertson
Vice-Chairman	Mrs M Twemlow JP
Admissions	Mrs M Twemlow Mr A Collins Mr P Fell Dr A Thorne
Personnel and Appointments	Dr A Thorne Mrs C Ashcroft Dr D Blything Mrs E Brandwood Mrs C Johnson Mr C Leeman Mr J Wylie
Staffing Dismissal	Mr P Fell Mrs C Ashcroft Dr D Blything
Staffing Dismissal Appeals	Mr J Wylie Mrs E Brandwood Mr F Hutchence Dr F Setna
Curriculum and Pupil Welfare	Mrs C Ashcroft Mr A Collins Mrs E Brandwood Dr D Blything Mr C Leeman Mrs A McGoldrick Dr D Parker Associate Member
Pupil Dicipline	Mrs M Twemlow Mr P Fell Mr F Hutchence Mr C Leeman
Pay	Chairman of Governers Vice-Chair of Governers Chairman of Finance Chairman of Personnel
Pay Appeals	Mrs C Ashcroft Mr I Brand Mr J Durrant JP Mr R Simcox (Associate Member)
Finance	Mr A Roberts Mrs C Johnson Mr R Simcox (Associate Member) Mr J Uriel
Premises & Grounds	Mr J Wylie Mr I Brand Mr J Durrant JP Mr F Hutchence Dr D Parker (Associate Member) Dr F Setna Mr J Uriel Mrs O Walsh
Special Needs Governer	Dr D Blything

Teachers

The school employs 89 full time staff. The following table shows the respective department heads:

Department	Teacher
Art	C.Dailey
Philosophy	R.Brereton
Sciences	D.Ross
Mathematics	L.Silcock
English	R.Lewton
Languages	C.Hunter
Sport studies	M.Lamprey
Drama	D.Meigh
Design and Technology	B.Thompson

Achievements

The school has a high achievement in both sport and academic results:

For the past few years, under the direction of Daniel Meigh and Randall Lewton, it has produced a number of acclaimed plays and musicals, including "Les Miserables" and "West Side Story". In November 2006, a production of The Who's "Tommy" will be performed.
Calday has won the past 8 of the last 10 regional annual United Nations quizzes. In 2005, the School "A" team defeated local rivals St Anselms, 44-40, taking the title for the third year in a row. The 2006 session begins in early November.
Calday also won the Gold in the UK Schools Quiz Championship in 2005, having achieved Silver in 2004. For the past 10 years or so, the team has been trained by teachers Brian Thompson (Technology) and Mike Devitt (English).
The school also has strong links with schools in Russia, China, and Germany, and takes part in regular student exchange programs.
The Merseyside regional Mock trials, for aspiring young barristers and lawyers, were won by Calday in 2005.
School teams excel at table tennis, rugby, and hockey.
Students have gone on co-educational trips, to Westminster, CERN, etc.

Most recently, the school has received the best GCSE results yet. 100% of pupils gained at least five A*-C grades. This success was most similar to this year's A-Level results. The school sends a small number of pupils to Oxbridge every year.

Buildings

The buildings/blocks are named after past headmasters or the subject taught there. The current buildings are:

The Art building (A) [Including Michael Cross Drama Studio] - Art and Drama
The Business Centre (B) (Hawkin's House) - Business Studies/Economics, Computing/ICT, Law, Philosophy
The Canteen Extension - Music
The Dodd building (D) - D&T, ICT
The E Block (E) - Latin, Careers, Counselling, Psychology
The Glasspool building (G) [+ GS Extension] - English, Mathematics, ICT
The Hawkins building (H) - Modern Foreign Languages, [+ 1 Geography classroom]
The Walker building (W) - Sciences, Geography, History
The Nigel Briers Building (W) - English, History, Government and Politics

Each building has a letter code consisting of the first letter of its name, with the exception of the Briers building, which, for this purpose, is considered an extension of the Walker building. These letters are used to designate room names, for example, the second room (2) on the first floor (1) of the Hawkins building (H) is known as H12.

Houses

The school has three Houses named after past benefactors and headmasters. Members of each house are identified by different coloured stripes on the school tie, or in the case of the 6th form, the colour of their lapel pin or 6th form tie.

Bennett - Named after Thomas Bennett, House colour blue
Glegg - Named after William Glegg, House colour red
Hollowell - Named after Rev. William Hollowell, House colour green

Up until quite recently there was a fourth house, named after Sir Alfred Paton, with gold as its house colour. Although Paton House is no more, Sir Alfred's memory is preserved in the naming of Paton Fields, bequeathed by him to the school in 1928.

Famous alumni

Most Rev. William Bennett Bond (1815-1906), Archbishop of Montreal
John Bowe - actor, notably Coronation Street ('Duggie Ferguson') and James Bond film The Living Daylights ('Colonel Feyador')
Daniel Craig - actor, notably James Bond in Casino Royale, and 'XXXX' in Layer Cake, (2004). His Calday attendance was brief; having joined the Sixth Form to do his A-levels, he quit, aged 16, after two weeks in 1984 and moved to London to pursue acting.
Stephen Cummings - Bronze Medalist at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in the Mens' Individual Pursuit Cycling
Sir Herbert William Emerson (1881-1962), Governor of the Punjab
Cyril Edward Gourley - Victoria Cross recipient
Raymond Towers Holmes (1914-2005), Battle of Britain RAF pilot, famous for stopping a German bomber from attacking Buckingham Palace by crashing his Hurricane fighter into it during WWII
Paul Humphreys - of the group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
David Lee - former BBC Weatherman, (May 1995 - 2000)
Andy McCluskey - of the group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
David Raven - football player at Carlisle United
Craig Lindfield - football player at Liverpool F.C
Bill Steer - guitarist in the band Napalm Death from 1987-1989, more well known as a member of grind-pioneers Carcass (band)
Ray Stubbs - TV presenter on BBC
Nick Power - Member of band The Coral
Dr. David Wynn-Williams [2] (1946-2002) Leading British astro-biologist, head of the Antarctic astrobiology project at the British Antarctic Survey.

Martin Shea - member of the comedy group Universal Grinding Wheel
Richard Sykes - founder of Sykotic Tendencies and only performer of the band which has had a Top 5 album hit in the German charts.

Headmasters

Years	Calday Grange Grammar School
1886-1891	Charles T. Blanshard
1891-1920	W. Hollowell
1920-1945	Reginald Thomas Booth Glasspool
1945-1953	R. E. Witt
1953-1964	Eric William Hawkins
1965-1978	Kenneth Saxon Watkinson Walker
1978-1986	Peter Dodd
1986-2002	Nigel Briers
2002-present	Andrew Hall

External links