St Laurence School
| St Laurence School | |
|---|---|
| Address | |
 | |
Ashley Road , , BA15 1DZ England | |
| Information | |
| Type | Voluntary controlled school and Academy |
| Motto | Care - Inspire - Succeed |
| Religious affiliation(s) | Church of England/Christian |
| Established | 1980 |
| Founder | Lord Fitzmaurice |
| Specialist | Arts |
| Department for Education URN | 137057 Tables |
| Headteacher | Fergus Stewart (January 2013-) |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Age | 11 to 18 |
| Enrollment | 1,389 |
| Former name | Fitzmaurice Grammar School and Trinity Secondary Modern |
| Diocese | Salisbury |
| Website | st-laurence.com |
St Laurence School is a secondary school in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, England. It became an Academy in August 2011.
Admissions
The school is also a specialist Arts College, formerly in the district of West Wiltshire. The current headteacher is Fergus Stewart. It takes pupils also from Atworth, Monkton Farleigh, Winsley, Limpley Stoke South Wraxall, Bradford Leigh and Trowbridge. It is situated in the north-west of Bradford-on-Avon on the road out towards Little Ashley.
History
The school was founded in 1980 on as a result of the merger of Fitzmaurice Grammar School and Trinity Secondary Modern school, opening on the Trinity site. In 2000 it became a Performing Arts College, resulting in extra investment in drama, music and dance facilities. It is named after the historically-important Saxon St Laurence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon.
The school's teaching departments are spread across numerous buildings on the school site. The school site also includes a large sports hall and several sports courts, pitches and playing fields. A lecture theatre was built in 2007 and was joined last year by a state of the art independent learning centre.
In October 2005, a helium balloon launched at a school fete on 24 September 2005, was found by 53-year-old Isak Toyra in Karesuando, Sweden who sent it back to the school, and claimed a £10 prize.[1] Karesuando is 1,430 miles (2,300 km) from the school, and information about the school was also sent to him.
On 2nd December 2016 it was announced in local and national news that one of the school's male deputy heads would be undertaking the transition to becoming a woman and would return to the school following the Christmas holidays under her new identity.
Wiltshire Music Centre
The Wiltshire Music Centre opened in 1998. Private and curriculum-based music lessons are held in the classrooms and teaching rooms in this building; and school collective worships, exam presentations, and other special events are held in its main auditorium. The Music Centre also contains a recording studio.
Roman villa remains
Aerial photographs and minor archaeological excavations in 1976 indicated the presence of the remains of a Roman Villa underneath the school's sports fields.[2] A more major excavation in 2003 uncovered Roman era floor mosaics and walls once belonging to this villa, along with a stone structure believed to have once been part of an early Christian baptistery.
Model United Nations
St Laurence is one of only a handful of state-sector schools in the country to take part in Model United Nations. The school's inaugural MUN conference was held in November 2007, and was attended by delegates from state and private schools across the south west of England. The MUN conference is now a routinely run conference, hosting up to 150 students, over two days of debating. It is deemed as a conference of learning how the MUN debating system works, and thus does not hand out prizes (best delegate etc.). It is highly regarded as a fun, but serious conference for the schools who attend.
Academic performance
In 2008 65% of the school's GCSE pupils achieved grades 5 A* to C including English and Mathematics. Currently there are 1,360 pupils attending the school, across key stages 3-5.
It gets the third best GCSE results for comprehensives in Wiltshire with very creditable results, and the seventh best for comprehensives at A level, with results above the England average. Most schools in Wiltshire achieve good results at A level: which is not always the case in other rural English counties.