Education
Grantham College, a further education college for the district, opened in 1948, for those not attending school sixth forms. It has a satellite site at Sleaford, Sleaford College. Since September 2008 the Walton Girls High School on Kitty Briggs Lane near Harlaxton Road has run post-16 courses as Grantham's only sixth form college.
Two notable schools in the district are Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School and The King's Grammar School. Both have large sixth forms and eminent past students. Britain's first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, attended Kesteven and Grantham, and Isaac Newton famously attended The King's. Both schools achieve high examination results and hold high places in the county's league tables. Both have remained single-sex up to the age of 16.
In 1970, Kesteven County Council (based in Sleaford) announced plans to turn the grammar schools into co-educational comprehensives for ages of 11–16 and leave Grantham College the only sixth form for the town. Later it was proposed to create two sixth-form colleges from one of the grammar schools. Other parts of Kesteven became comprehensive but responsibility for education passed to Lincolnshire under the local government reorganization of 1974, and both schools stayed as grammar schools. Ex-pupil Margaret Thatcher was education secretary at the time. The governors of the King's School delayed the process in July 1973, and in January 1975 a plan to make Grantham comprehensive was voted against by the county council, having been approved by the council's own education committee.
All four secondary modern schools are on the outskirts of Grantham. Only three of the six secondary schools are co-educational. In recent years, in the Grantham area of South Kesteven, around 60% of those at 16 years of age achieved five GCSEs at grades A*-C. This compares to 45% for those in Melton and under 30% for those in Newark.
Central Technology & Sports College, a co-educational school, is sited near Manthorpe. It became the Priory Ruskin Academy in September 2010.
On Gorse Lane is Grantham Preparatory School, an independent school preparing entrants for the 11-plus examination. Another private primary school is Dudley House School. Near to St Wulfram's on Castlegate is the National Church of England Junior School, built in 1859, and a feeder school for the town's grammar schools.
The Blessed Hugh More School, a Catholic secondary school, closed in 1989.
Read more about this topic: Grantham
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there are no happy men. The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former. That is why we demand education and knowledge.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Those who first introduced compulsory education into American life knew exactly why children should go to school and learn to read: to save their souls.... Consistent with this goal, the first book written and printed for children in America was titled Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in either England, drawn from the Breasts of both Testaments for their Souls’ Nourishment.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.”
—Jean Piaget (1896–1980)