Harrogate Grammar School
This year has been busy for Harrogate Grammar School History Department. We have consolidated activities from previous years, such as the crosscurricular 'Who Do You Think You Are' Day, which has taken place for the third time this year, involving History, Geography, RS, science, and PE.
We also took 88 year 9 students to the Western Front battlefields, a trip which has been taking place for more than a dozen years. A number of new activities also took place, including a wide range of trips and visiting speakers.
A very special event was a talk from Holocaust survivor Iby Knill to all year 9 students and a number of sixth formers. Two of our sixth formers also took part in the Holocaust Education Trust's 'Lessons from Auschwitz' programme.
We continued to encourage students in all years to enter national competitions and a year 13 student won the Women's History Network essay competition, a year 12 student won the Parliamentary Press Gallery Political writing competition and a year 10 student won the Speaker's writing competition. As part of their prize the latter two students visited parliament, one having tea in number 10 while the other lunch with the Speaker.
A group of year 7 students took part in a joint engineering and History day at Knaresborough Castle where they learned the technology of making trebuchets and got to fire their models, as well as having a guided tour of the Castle.
We also have a new website for sixth form history and politics and are using it to make resources easily available for students.
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 its recent Ofsted inspection, the highest possible. It has recently been awarded a second specialism in Design & Technology, and also status as a Training School.