Aylesbury Grammar School

As a selective state school, its entry requirements are dictated by the 11-plus. The school also takes pupils from outside the catchment area and even out of county locations such as Thame and Milton Keynes, based on eleven plus performances.

The school educates boys from the age of 11, in Year 7, through to the age of 18, in Year 13 (Upper VI). The school has its largest intakes at Year 7 followed by Year 12 (Lower VI). On completing GCSEs, most pupils stay on to complete their A-levels at the school's sixth-form.[4] It is sometimes, but not often, possible to transfer to the school in years 8, 9, or 10 by doing a late transfer test.

The school is situated east of the town centre on the southern side of the A41, between Walton (to the west) and Victoria Park (to the east). This site was built and opened in 1907, replacing an earlier building at St. Mary's in the town centre, which now forms part of the Buckinghamshire Museum.[5]

Aylesbury Grammar School main building on the former site

[8] Aylesbury Grammar School was founded in 1598 following a bequest from Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, the Champion of Queen Elizabeth I and its first home was in the church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aylesbury. It later moved to the buildings which now house the County Museum until 1907, when it moved to its present site. For many years the school was independent and its intake was co-educational. In 1952 it became voluntary controlled and in 1959 the girls moved to a separate site to become Aylesbury High School. Links with the girls' school are retained through joint activities such as school concerts, plays, dances and theatre visits. There are now around 1300 boys in the school, of whom almost 400 are in the Sixth Form.

In 1714 Henry Phillips left a further sum of £5,000. By the terms of the will the sum upon trust was to be applied "for the purchase of lands of inheritance in fee simple in the county of Bucks for the enlargement and further provision for the Free School in Aylesbury". "There were to be 120 boys admitted, to be taught gratis and to be furnished with books, pens, ink and paper, gratis". Some £4,000 of the bequest was invested in farm property in the Manor of Broughton. Ten trustees were appointed by the High Court in 1717. They were the first trustees of what is now the Aylesbury Grammar School Foundation.

By the mid-1880s the inadequacies of the school site were becoming apparent; particularly the lack of games facilities. The old buildings were deteriorating and there were suggestions that fees of £4 to £6 might be charged with provision of scholarships for poorer boys on grounds of merit from public elementary schools of the district. The search for a new site began. A committee was established in the name of Aylesbury Grammar School and support from local charities was sought for the provision of a new site for the school. The charities were also approached with a view to making some provision for girls. In 1902 the Balfour Education Act was passed which laid the foundations for the country's secondary education. The County Council was permitted to raise money for secondary education from local rates and on 2 July 1903, a new scheme under the name of Aylesbury Grammar School came into existence.

In 1904 Lord Rothschild of Tring agreed to sell about eight acres of land adjoining Turnfurlong Lane at £170 an acre to the Foundation Trustees. The purchase price was £1,406/10/00 and in Easter 1907 the school transferred from the old buildings in St Mary's Square, where it had been since 1611, to its present site. The old buildings were sold in two lots. Lot One was bought by the Architectural and Archaeological Society for the purpose of housing a museum and Lot Two was acquired by St Mary's Church. The school's modest investments were sold by the Trustees and Bucks County Council offered a grant of £2000. The cost of the school was to be £6000 and the Headmaster's House £1,500 with an additional £250 for laying out the frontage and fencing. Lord Rothschild donated shrubs for the front of the school. Some 400 people attended the opening ceremony at which Lord Rothschild was presented with a silver key mounted with the Aylesbury Arms. The new school would accommodate 75 boys and 75 girls.

Foundation Hall, photograph taken from the Headmasters Quad

The Aylesbury Grammar School Foundation Trustees owned all the property which was held in trust for the benefit of the School and there was a separate governing body which managed the School. A position which continues to this day. In October 1914 the school premises were requisitioned by the War Office for a military hospital and the school moved to temporary accommodation in and around Kingsbury and St Mary's Squares. A flock of sheep grazed the cricket pitch. Staffing problems became acute and boys were withdrawn to compensate for the loss of farm labour because of conscription. In September 1919, 220 pupils were re-admitted to the School. Twenty-one former pupils had died in the war and their names are inscribed on the memorial stone which was unveiled two years later. In 1922 there was a Sixth Form of 20 pupils. The next twenty years could be described as a period of consolidation of the co-educational grammar school and by 1939 numbers had grown to 346.

During the Second World War, Ealing County Boys' School was evacuated and Aylesbury pupils attended classes here in the morning and Ealing pupils in the afternoon. A bomb fell on Walton Grange in September 1942 and though the effect of the blast was considerable the school was soon repaired. In 1956 the County Council decided to create two single sex schools with the Foundation being attached to the boys' school which would benefit from the Foundation's income. The new girls' school was built and major capital work including the Tower block in 1963, six laboratories in 1964 and an extension to the hall in 1965 were built at AGS. In 1965 the Foundation Trustees sold two fields in Stocklake and provided the school with its swimming pool and since then the Foundation has also contributed substantially to the cost of the Sports Hall, the new Science block and the Foundation Hall along with other smaller donations. The agricultural land in Broughton, which was acquired in 1715 with Henry Phillips' bequest, will be sold and the income from the capital sum will be invested to provide further funds with which the Foundation will be able to support the School in years to come.

The School has therefore come full circle. It is no longer under the aegis of the County Council, having become an Academy with a strong governing body which manages the School on which parents, staff, Foundation Trustees and others are represented and a Foundation Trust whose Trustees' main purpose is to support the School.

Single sex school

The school was previously a mixed-sex school but then parted in 1959 after a fire (in 1953[9]) which destroyed part of the old school buildings. The girls' school became Aylesbury High School and is across the road from Aylesbury Grammar School.

The current headmaster is Mark Sturgeon who took over from Stephen Lehec at the start of the 2014–15 academic year.[10]

The Geography (left) and Maths (centre) blocks by the school field

Each pupil is placed into one of six houses upon starting at the school, students are generally separated from others who they went to the same primary school with. The six houses are:[11]

Each year, the school houses compete for the Brodie Trophy for sports and the Watson Trophy for all other activities (including art, music and public speaking). The awards are named after former pupils who have made a great contribution to the school's life. The competitions have been taking place for over 300 years, when the 'houses' were groups of boarders living in one building.[13] There is also a defunct trophy called 'Merit Marks', which was abolished due to imbalances in the willingness of various teachers to distribute them.

At the end of each event the houses gain points for their placements in these events; and at the end of the year, these points are totaled up and a winner is declared for each trophy.

In the first two years of the school, pupils are almost exclusively taught in their houses (with the exceptions of Maths and Physical Education, in which pupils are streamed by ability in year 8–9, and by their second Foreign Language choice in year 8–9; until the 2008/9 academic year, where year 7s are now assigned two languages – French and either German or Spanish according to the house (Denson, Hampden and Lee do German; Paterson, Phillips and Ridley do Spanish) and then start learning Latin in year 8). Tutor groups are also split up into groups of 20 for Design Technology lessons. From the start of the 2018-2019 Academic Year, students in Year 9 are also split up from their form classes and put in classes with other students they may not have met before.

In Year 10 and above, the year group is reshuffled into different classes for each subject depending on their GCSE options these different GCSE choices mean they may not see others from either tutor group or form. From this point onwards, the houses play a lesser role in the day-to-day life of students but continue to organise teams for the Watson or Brodie trophies as well as taking house assemblies and supporting a particular house charity. Additionally heads of house prepare their sixth formers for university and write all UCAS references.

The teaching staff at Aylesbury Grammar School includes Dr. Carol Blyth, who has received a 'Teacher of the Decade' award[14] as well as Dr Kevin Bond, author and Chairman of Examiners for Computing. Dr Bond retired from AGS in December 2009, followed by Dr Blyth in December 2011.[15]

In 2009, the school received the best A-level results in Buckinghamshire LEA, and some distance better than the girls' school, which also receives good results. Buckinghamshire LEA (the county council) is based in Aylesbury.

On 9 May 2014, boys at the school dressed up as the Jamaican bobsleigh team for their school-leaving celebrations and 'blacked up' as part of their costume. This came to public attention when an image of the schoolboys was tweeted by the then headmaster Stephen Lehec, and was criticised for being racist. Lehec issued a formal apology, though in his analysis 'at no time was there an undertone of any act being of a derogatory or racist nature'. The matter was widely reported in local and national media.[16]

• Aylesbury High School
• Dr Challoner's Grammar School
• Royal Grammar School
• Sir William Borlase's Grammar School
• List of English and Welsh endowed schools (19th century)

• Department for Education Performance Tables 2011
• Aylesbury Grammar School Debating Society
• EduBase