coeducational
Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...
secondary school
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...
Ecclesfield
Ecclesfield is a village and civil parish in the City of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, approximately 6 miles (9 km) north of Sheffield City Centre. Ecclesfield civil parish had a population of 32,073 at the 2011 Census. Ecclesfiel ...
,
South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...
in the
East Ecclesfield
East Ecclesfield ward—which includes the districts of Chapeltown and Ecclesfield—is one of the 28 electoral wards in City of Sheffield, England. It is located in the northern part of the city and covers an area of in the eastern pa ...
district of Sheffield, England. It is for ages 11–16. It has about 1,750 pupils, making it the largest school in Sheffield.
History
Ecclesfield School opened as "Ecclesfield Grammar School" in 1931. Its foundation was largely due to the efforts of Lady Mabel Smith, a Labour councillor on the West Riding County Council, and daughter of Earl Fitzwilliam. Lady Mabel was Chairman of the School Governors from 1931 to her death in 1951.
The school was designed in 1939 by Frederick MacManus, an Irish born architect working for (Sir) John Burney, Tait & Lorne architects of London.
In 1931 Ecclesfield Grammar School provided for three streams of 30 pupils, increased to five in 1952 with an annual intake of 150 and a total number on roll of 800; by this time 2,500 pupils had been admitted. Following integration with Hunshelf pupil intake increased further. Total pupil numbers during the 36 years the school operated as a grammar school was approximately 4,450, and approximately 10,000 since it became a comprehensive.
Major extensions to the school were made in 1952-53, including Lady Mabel Hall, kitchens and classrooms, and separate science and craft blocks. Further building undertaken during the 1960s included a sports hall with changing rooms and a multi-story classroom block, with the gymnasium from the previous building converted into a library. Concurrently, a separate Hunshelf School was built on part of the playing fields.
During the 1950s new entrants were allocated to forms according to surname alphabetical order, and were allotted to a "house", Strafford, Brontë, Fairfax or Priestley, for weekly assembly and competitive sports.
In 1967 the School became Ecclesfield Comprehensive School after amalgamating with Hunshelf
Secondary Modern School
A secondary modern school () is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Secondary modern schools accommodated the majority (70–75%) of pupil ...
, and served the areas of Ecclesfield, Chapeltown, Hoyland, Elsecar, High Green, Bradfield, Stannington, Grenoside, Oughtibridge and Wharncliffe Side, on the southern boundary of the West Riding of Yorkshire between Sheffield and Barnsley. Initially, it remained separate from Hunshelf School, but the two schools later amalgamated to form an enlarged Ecclesfield Comprehensive, run by Sheffield City Council.
Again, major building work took place in the school in the early 21st century, as the Priory, Wharncliffe and Cowley blocks were built (often shortened to just P, W, and C) as well as the new canteen and car park. It was here where the school gained its 'Specialist in visual and performing arts' status. On 1 April 2014, the school converted to academy status.
Drama
The school has drama and music studios, and a theatre with tiered seating and lighting system. Productions include musicals and serious dramas. Ecclesfield School teachers Paul O'Farrell and Ben Smithard wrote and directed the play ''Exit Stage Left'' which was performed at the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe, the Fringe or the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days, sold more than 2.6 million tickets and featur ...
in July & August 2012, and was well-reviewed in the local ''Sheffield Star''. The play won the Yorkshire music and drama award. They have also directed musicals and plays which take place in the school's Lady Mabel Hall annually.
Academic performance
At
GCSE
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools ...
, the school performs below average for Sheffield LEA. In a report from 2017 the school achieved "Inadequate" in its Ofsted Report.
Notable former pupils
*
Jamie Cook
Arctic Monkeys are an English rock band formed in Sheffield in 2002. They comprise lead singer Alex Turner, drummer Matt Helders, guitarist Jamie Cook and bassist Nick O'Malley. The co-founder and original bassist Andy Nicholson left in 20 ...
, guitarist with the
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys are an English Rock music, rock band formed in Sheffield in 2002. They comprise lead singer Alex Turner, drummer Matt Helders, guitarist Jamie Cook and bassist Nick O'Malley. The co-founder and original bassist Andy Nicholson ...
*
Karl Ley
Karl John Fairfax Ley, GM is a British Army soldier and a bomb disposal expert. As a staff sergeant in the 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment RLC, he was awarded the George Medal for bomb disposal duties in Afghanistan, where he defused mo ...
, bomb disposal expert, awarded the
George Medal
The George Medal (GM), instituted on 24 September 1940 by King George VI,''British Gallantry Medals'' (Abbott and Tamplin), p. 138 is a decoration of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, awarded for gallantry, typically ...
Steve Peat
Steve Peat (born 17 June 1974 in Chapeltown, South Yorkshire), nicknamed "Sheffield Steel" or more commonly just "Peaty", is a British professional downhill mountain biker who was born and lives in Chapeltown, Sheffield, England. Prior to his ...
, mountain biker
*
Jordan Ramos
Jordan Ramos (born 18 July 1995 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a British Islands, British Sprint running, sprinter, former British Gymnast, five-times British Tumbling (gymnastics) Champion, a European Silver Medallist, a Guinness World Records B ...
tumbling (gymnastics)
Tumbling, sometimes referred to as power tumbling, is a gymnastics discipline in which participants perform a series of acrobatic skills down a long rod floor. Each series, known as a pass, comprises eight elements in which the athlete jumps, t ...
*
Billy Sharp
Billy Louis Sharp (born 5 February 1986) is an English professional footballer who plays as a striker for club Doncaster Rovers.
Sharp has played for Sheffield United, Rushden & Diamonds, Scunthorpe United, Southampton, Nottingham Forest, Re ...
Chris Baines
John Christopher Baines (born 4 May 1947) is an English naturalist, one of the UK's leading independent environmentalists.Joanna Constantinidis, potter
*
Barry Hines
Melvin Barry Hines, FRSL (30 June 1939 – 18 March 2016) was an English author, playwright and screenwriter. His novels and screenplays explore the political and economic struggles of working-class Northern England, particularly in his native W ...
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...
from 2001–05
*
Frank Newby
Frank Newby (26 March 1926 – 10 May 2001) was one of the leading structural engineers of the 20th century, working with such architects as Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, Eero Saarinen, Cedric Price,James Gowan (architect) James Stirling, a ...
, structural engineer, designed the
Skylon Skylon may refer to:
* Skylon (Festival of Britain), a landmark structure of the 1951 Festival of Britain
* Skylon (spacecraft)
Skylon was a series of concept designs for a reusable single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane by the British company React ...
for the
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951.
Labour Party cabinet member Herbert Morrison was the prime mover; in 1947 he started with the ...
and the aviary for
London Zoo
London Zoo, previously known as ZSL London Zoo or London Zoological Gardens and sometimes called Regent's Park Zoo, is the world's oldest scientific zoo. It was opened in London on 27 April 1828 and was originally intended to be used as a colle ...
*
Donald Pleasence
Donald Henry Pleasence (; 5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English actor. He was known for his "bald head and intense, staring eyes," and played more than 250 stage, film, and television roles across a nearly sixty-year career.
Pleas ...
silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...
Birmingham Perry Barr
Birmingham Perry Barr is a constituency in the West Midlands, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by independent Ayoub Khan since July 2024. It had previously been held since 2001 by Khalid Mahmood of the Labour Party.
B ...
Sheffield Hillsborough
Sheffield Hillsborough was a County constituency, Parliamentary constituency in the Sheffield, City of Sheffield. It was considered a safe Labour Party (UK), Labour seat and was represented by Helen Jackson (politician), Helen Jackson from 1992 ...
from 1992-2005)
See also
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Education in Sheffield
Formal education in Sheffield, England, takes place at the city's two universities, 141 primary schools and 28 secondary schools.
The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University combined bring 55,000 students to the city every year, ...