Harrogate Grammar School
Harrogate Grammar School History Department has always undertaken a wide range of activities to enrich the experiences available to its students. Participation in the PTI programme has, however, led to us reviewing what we offer and ensured a clear focus.
We have tried to ensure that History maintains its high profile with students as a discrete subject, but have also been involved in cross-curricular initiatives. One of the most important of these was a Year 7 project focused on ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, which was launched by a collapsed timetable day involving History, Geography, Science, PE and Religious Studies.
Our students have continued to be successful in competitions. A sixth former’s success in Robert Lacey’s ‘Great Tales from History’ competition led to a visit by the author to the school, in which he talked to students from all year groups about writing History and his own experiences. Another sixth former won the Julia Wood essay prize and will see her work published in History Review.
As usual we took more than 80 year 9 students to visit First World War battlefields in May half term. Other initiatives have seen the further development of a VLE for sixth formers, engagement with various Higher Education institutions and work with QCA on APP and the exemplification of standards for the new KS3 programme of study.
Harrogate Grammar School is a specialist Language and Technology College in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. It is a mixed school for students aged 11-18, with about 1,700 pupils and about 400 pupils in the sixth form. The school achieved an 'Outstanding' grade in it's recent Ofsted inspection, the highest possible. It has recently been awarded a second specialism in Design & Technology, and also status as a Training School.