Richmond School

Richmond School & Sixth Form College, often referred to simply as Richmond School, is a coeducational comprehensive secondary school with academy status, located in North Yorkshire, England. It was created by the merger of three schools, the oldest of which, Richmond Grammar School, is of such antiquity that its exact founding date is unknown. The first mentions of it in writings, however, is estimated, to be between 1361 and 1474. It was officially ratified as an educational establishment in 1568 by Elizabeth I.

The school is on the outskirts of Richmond, near the Yorkshire Dales. It accepts both boys and girls and serves a wide catchment area across most of the north-west corner of North Yorkshire, including Swaledale.

Richmond School was the first school in Richmondshire. It accepted only boys and its only entry requirements were that pupils could read and write. Its date of foundation is not known, but it first appears in a registry believed to have been written between 1361 and 1474. It was awarded a charter ratifying its status on 14 March 1568 by Queen Elizabeth I and was one of the first free grammar schools in England. The school was built on what is now the churchyard of St Mary's Church, which stands opposite to and further up the hill to the former Richmond Lower School Building. In 1677 a new building replaced the Elizabethan one and this was used until 1850 when the school moved into a smaller building which still stands, and which until 2011 was used for teaching.

The name of the school from its foundation was Richmond School, as for many years it was the only school in the town. In later years it was referred to locally as "The Grammar School", although this was not its official name. Following the merger of the school with the Secondary Modern and the Girls' High School into a single comprehensive school the decision was made to retain the name "Richmond School" for the new establishment.^{[citation needed]}

In 1940 a Girls’ High school was built, designed by Modernist architect Denis Clarke Hall. The school was built approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) from the Boys Grammar School near Darlington Road, having its main entrance in The Avenue.

In 1950 Richmond Secondary Modern School was built to accommodate those who had not passed their 11-plus exam and so did not qualify for admission to either Richmond School or the Girls' High School. Large buildings were constructed about 200 yards from the Girls’ High School.

In 1971 all three schools merged to create a comprehensive school named Richmond School. The then-headmaster of the Grammar School, J.D. Dutton, became the headmaster of the new combined school. All three original sites were still used but for different purposes. The school was split into three sections: Lower School for Year 7, Middle School for Years 8–10 and Upper School for Years 11–13. These were situated in the former Richmond (Grammar) School, the former Secondary Modern School and the Girls’ High School respectively, although significant extensions were added to all sites until the school's investment as part of a DfES 'Building Schools for the Future' programme.

In January 2006 the school was successful in bidding for a DfES grant of £30 million to be spent redeveloping the school. A large factor that played a part in the grant was that Richmond is the only school in North Yorkshire to have sites which are 1 mile apart. In addition to the £30 million a successful bid was made to make the school sustainable. This brought the total investment to over £32 million. In 2009 it was announced that those entering the school in the academic year 2010–11 would be the last to use the original 1850 site (now called Lower School) in their first year in the school; all years would be taught at the same Darlington Road site and the Lower School would be sold off. The Lower School was later bought by North Yorkshire County Council in 2012 for £400,000 to be used as their new headquarters.