Grove School is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form located in Market Drayton, Shropshire, England, for pupils aged between 11 and 18.
Grove School is Market Drayton's only secondary school. The school has facilities including large sports and playing fields and a sixth form college that has recently been transformed into a Year 7 area to help the new enrollers to adapt to Secondary School life before heading to the main building in Year 8, while the sixth formers are in a different part of the site.
History The school was formed from Market Drayton Grammar School. The new school opened on Tuesday September 14 1965, with 950 and 47 full-time teachers. The chairman of the governors did not want a comprehensive school.Market Drayton Advertiser Friday 16 March 1990, page 8
A £90,000 science block opened in January 1966, with a 60-seat lecture theatre.Shropshire Star Wednesday 2 February 1966, page 23 In early October 1966 Oswestry MP John Biffen visited the school.Wellington Journal Friday 7 October 1966
From 1968Lincolnshire Echo Saturday 11 December 1971, page 1Staffordshire Sentinel Friday 2 August 1968, page 10 to 1973 the headteacher was Arthur Behenna. In 1970, the school was one of 30 schools experimenting with the Nuffield Spanish course.Wellington Journal Friday 6 March 1970, page 6
The 42-year-old head of drama, Raymond G Gregory, was appointed head of drama in 1967, but in early 1970, his department was to be taken over by the English department, and 75% of the syllabus was to be literary. Mr Gregory said many of these texts were from the 1930s, had written a complaint to the Times Educational Supplement, and at a PTA meeting had offended the headteacher, causing disruption at the meeting. In December 1970 the chairman of the LEA, Colonel A F Sykes, had decided that Mr Gregory must leave his £2,200 job, for not teaching the expected syllabus, as the drama teacher wanted a more 'modern' syllabus, with 'free expression'. A county councillor, Warren Hawksley, questioned Mr Gregory about discipline, and if he believed in any. Mr Gregory answered that he did not believe in discipline, only self-discipline. Mr Gregory did not like the school governors, calling them 'a closed group'. Mark Suttery was chairman of the governors. The deputy headmaster Martin Ridgway supported Mr Gregory.Shropshire Star Saturday 23 January 1971, page 14Market Drayton Advertiser Friday 7 September 1990, page 5
200 children subsequently went on a banner-waving protest throughout the town, to reinstate the drama teacher, on Thursday December 17 1970, and gathered outside the headmaster's window, chanting slogans,Wellington Journal Friday 18 December 1970, page 1Shropshire Star Tuesday 22 December 1970, page 6 but the teacher was not reinstated.Birmingham Daily Post Friday 18 December 1970, page 14Staffordshire Sentinel Saturday 18 December 1971, page 10
In March 1971 government inspectors conducted a four-day inspection. The dispute lasted until May 1971. At the time, Shropshire County Council was more interested in how the school's results had plummeted over five years since becoming a comprehensive.Staffordshire Sentinel Friday 7 May 1971, page 14
Academy In December 2018, the school converted to an academy as part of the Marches Academy Trust. Mitchell Allsopp was appointed as headteacher in January 2024.
Headteachers c.1936, H Alfred Hesketh, his wife died on June 20 1956, aged 54, due to a lung condition, after an operation on her noseBirmingham Daily Post Wednesday 27 June 1956, page 9 January 1957, Mr Albert Frederick Tongue, aged 39, head of the grammar school, from Northampton Grammar School, he attended Wolverhampton Grammar School, with a Classics degree from the University of Birmingham in 1939, Staffordshire Sentinel Friday 19 October 1956, page 11 he died in November 1964Shropshire Star Friday 22 January 1965, page 9 September 1964, Donald N Mackay (March 24 1924 -2018) aged 40, he had been for four years the head of the Lower School at Monks Park Secondary School (now Orchard School Bristol), and previously head of History at King Edward's School, Bath since 1958, Bristol Evening Post Wednesday 22 June 1960, page 2 he attended Kingswood School in Bath.Shropshire Star Tuesday 14 September 1965, page 9Market Drayton Advertiser Friday 29 April 1994, page 8 In 1968 Mackay was appointed as head of Wanstead County High School, to turn the school comprehensive.Shropshire Star Friday 10 May 1968, page 12 In 1975 Mackay encountered some controversy, when as a 51-year-old grandfather, with two daughters, he eloped with a 19-year-old former Wanstead sixth-former, leaving his 48-year-old primary headteacher wife of 29 years; the sixth-former now studied opera at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama,Sunday Mirror Sunday 18 May 1975, page 7Daily Mirror Tuesday 20 May 1975, page 11Shropshire Star Tuesday 20 May 1975, page 1 and married her in February 1976 at the Kensington and Chelsea Register Office.Daily Mirror Saturday 28 February 1976, page 1Shropshire Star Saturday 28 February 1976, page 1 Mackay died on February 14 2018 January 1969, Arthur Behenna, aged 45, with a 17 year-old son, and 14-year-old daughter,Shropshire Star Wednesday 17 July 1968Shropshire Star Monday 22 July 1968, page 5 he grew up in Mevagissey,Cornish Guardian Thursday 10 October 1968, page 10 and attended St Austell County Grammar School, taking a Geography degree at Worcester College, Oxford, and had served in the RAF Air Sea Rescue Service (Royal Air Force Marine Branch) in the Second World War, then taught from 1959 at Melbourn Village College, where he became headteacher.Lincolnshire Echo Wednesday 15 December 1971, page 8 He was against the 11-plus system, as many local parents, with able children, took those children out of Market Drayton,Shropshire Star Thursday 7 October 1971, page 16 and believed in the 'comprehensive principle', giving talks on the subject.Shropshire Star Wednesday 22 December 1971. His daughter studied English at Swansea.Shropshire Star Wednesday 4 October 1972, page 14 He became headteacher of Lincoln School, a boys' grammar school, in 1973.Shropshire Star Wednesday 1 December 1971, page 1 He left Lincoln Christ's Hospital School in 1985.
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