The Giles Academy (formerly the Giles School) is a mixed

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 ...

located in

Old Leake Old Leake is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 2,022. Old Leake is situated approximately north-east from Boston, Lincolnshire, Boston, and ...

in the

English county The counties of England are a type of subdivision of England. Counties have been used as administrative areas in England since Anglo-Saxon times. There are three definitions of county in England: the 48 ceremonial counties used for the purpo ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

History

Giles Secondary Modern School opened its doors to students on Wednesday 10 January 1962. It was built by J.T. Barber of Boston. The school was named after Lt-Col Sir Oswald Giles, who was the chairman of

Holland County Council Holland County Council was the county council of Holland, one of the three Parts of Lincolnshire in eastern England. It came into its powers on 1 April 1889 and was abolished on 1 April 1974. The county council was based at County Hall, Boston. It ...

for 18 years; he was knighted in the

1955 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours 1955 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The appointments were made to celebrate ...

; he died on Tuesday 4 August 1970, aged 82. It was previously a

foundation school In England and Wales, a foundation school is a state-funded school in which the school governor, governing body has greater freedom in the running of the school than in Community school (England and Wales), community schools. Foundation schools ...

administered by

Lincolnshire County Council Lincolnshire County Council is the county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire in England. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county; the latter additionally includes North Lincolnshire and No ...

. The new school boasts modern facilities and equipment after a £125,000 investment. On 1 September 2010, the Giles School converted to academy status and was renamed the Giles Academy. However the school continues to coordinate with Lincolnshire County Council for admissions. The Giles Academy offers

GCSEs 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 ...

and BTECs as programmes of study for pupils. The school previously offered

sixth form In the education systems of Barbados, England, Jamaica, Northern Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago, Wales, and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepa ...

education for students to study from a range of

A Levels The A-level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational a ...

and further BTECs. In 2005, the school was awarded a specialism in visual arts. As a result, all

key stage 4 Key Stage 4 (KS4) is the legal term for the two years of school education which incorporate GCSEs, and other examinations, in maintained schools in England normally known as Year 10 and Year 11, when pupils are aged between 14 and 16 by August 31 ...

students are required to undertake at least one art and design related subject for their GCSE studies. In November 2015, the school finished constructing a new swimming pool and held an opening ceremony with former student and former Olympic swimmer Melanie Marshall. In 2016, after 24 years of leadership, Executive Headmaster Chris Walls (the 3rd headteacher in over 50 years of the school's history) retired. Previous Deputy Headmaster Ian Widdows was named as his replacement. Since the departure of Widdows several years later, Lucy Conley has served as the school's headteacher, with Katie Belcher taking on the role of Head of School.

Controversies

In October 2009, the Giles Academy was fined after an unsupervised art student suffered severe burns to her hands after plunging them into a bucket of

plaster of paris Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...

. After 12 operations, the student lost all her fingers on one hand, but managed to keep two on the other. In July 2012, a

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

student was briefly banned from sitting GCSE exams after arriving in a girl's uniform. In response, the student presented the headmaster, Chris Walls, with a copy of the UK's Equality Act. Despite this, the student, Ashlyn Parram, was segregated from everyone else taking the exam. On February 14, 2020, following numerous poor reports from

Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training ...

, a termination warning notice was served to the Giles Academy. The report highlighted a number of concerns raised by Ofsted, accusing school leaders of "lack ngcapacity to improve the school" and describing a culture of "low expectation and low aspiration". In response to the Ofsted reports and termination warning notice, local news websites began to claim the school was "failing" amidst rumours that the sixth form would be shutting down. The school had only received 30 applications for students wanting to attend sixth form the following academic year.

Notable alumni

Melanie Marshall Melanie Jayne Marshall (born 12 January 1982) is a former British swimmer. She has won numerous medals for her country as well as being a swimming coach of the year for her work with Adam Peaty in Derby and later Loughborough. Early life She ...

(born 1982) Former Olympic athlete, European Gold medal winning swimmer, now coach to Olympic Gold medal winner Adam Peaty *

Brian Bolland Brian Bolland (; born 26 March 1951)Salisbury, Mark, ''Artists on Comic Art'' (Titan Books, 2000) , p. 11 is a British comics artist. Best known in the United Kingdom as one of the Judge Dredd artists for British comics anthology ''2000 AD (comi ...

(born 1951), cartoonist *

Lewis Brooks Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * " Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...

(born 1987), former professional football player for

Boston United Boston United Football Club is a semi-professional association football club based in Boston, Lincolnshire, England. The club participates in the National League, the fifth level of the English football league system. The club is known as 'the ...

, Boston Town and England U-18 *

Confidential Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise sometimes executed through confidentiality agreements that limits the access to or places restrictions on the distribution of certain types of information. Legal confidentiality By law, law ...

(born 2006) Music artist/singer-songwriter

References

External links

Giles Academy official website
{{authority control Academies in Lincolnshire Borough of Boston Educational institutions established in 1962 1962 establishments in England Secondary schools in Lincolnshire