Kettering Grammar School was a boys'

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...

(selective) that had a number of homes in

Kettering Kettering is a market town, market and industrial town, industrial town in the North Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England, west of Cambridge, England, Cambridge, southwest of Peterborough, southeast of Leicester and north- ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

throughout its history.

History

The school was based in a building in Gold Street which, together with the master's house, was completed in 1857. It then relocated to Bowling Green Road, a building designed by John Alfred Gotch in the

neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

and completed in 1913. The building was occupied on the left side by Kettering High School (for girls) and on the right side by Kettering Grammar School (for boys). After the school moved to Windmill Avenue, to the east of the town north of Wicksteed Park, in 1965, the Bowling Green Road building became the Kettering Municipal Offices.

Comprehensive

In later years the Windmill Avenue buildings housed Kettering Boys School, with many of the same teachers as the Grammar School but no longer selective, and now part of the area's Comprehensive education system. It operated on two sites – a lower and upper school. The Kettering High School became Kettering School for Girls on Lewis Road (near Wicksteed Park) and then Southfield School for Girls on Lewis Road.

Further education college

The Windmill Avenue site has been occupied by Tresham College of Further and Higher Education, (Kettering Campus), since 1993. The former Grammar School buildings were knocked down in 2007 to make way for the Tresham's new block.

Headteachers

* Tom Bowker, the head of the boys' comprehensive from 1976, was the former head of Queen Elizabeth's High School, a coeducational grammar school in

Gainsborough, Lincolnshire Gainsborough () is a market town and civil parish in the West Lindsey Non-metropolitan district, district of Lincolnshire, England. The population was 20,842 at the 2011 census, and estimated at 23,243 in 2019. It lies on the east bank of the ...

, and a Cambridge-educated Maths teacher. His wife Jean Bowker, who taught in Corby, stood unsuccessfully for Lib-SDP Alliance in May 1987, in the local council, in the same ward as

Phil Hope Philip Ian Hope (born 19 April 1955) is a former British Labour and Co-operative politician who was the member of parliament (MP) for Corby from 1997 until 2010, when he lost his seat to the Conservatives. He held several ministerial roles dur ...

. She worked with Inner Wheel and the Methodists. Bowker retired aged 60 in March 1989. His teacher wife Jean disliked the new CTC for Corby.

Space research

In the 1960s, Geoffrey Perry, head of the school Physics department experimented with using satellite signals and the Doppler effect as an aid to teaching. The activity soon grew into regular monitoring of Soviet-launched satellites and expanded into an international collaboration that became known as the ''Kettering Group''. The group was headed by Perry, who by then had become Head of Science Teaching. On the technical front Perry was partnered by the head of the chemistry department, Derek Slater – a Radio Amateur, G3FOZ. The activities of Perry and his team created considerable interest: an article which had been published in Aviation Week magazine in 1957 revealed that the U.S. had been tracking Russian missile launches from advanced long-range radar units in Turkey. The article caused a furore, with President Dwight D. Eisenhower's special assistant for National Security Affairs, Robert Cutler, referring to the article as "treasonable". It was claimed that the story started with Perry and his students and that Perry had advised a writer at the magazine that a radar in Turkey was doing important space intel tracking, so the writer dug deeper into the story. A Kettering contribution to the 1957 story would not have been possible at the time because the tracking team was not formed until 1964 and its analyses of the Soviet space programme only started to appear a couple years later. In 1966 the project went international when Swedish student Sven Grahn contacted the group with a recording of the signals from Kosmos 104. The same year it discovered Soviet launches from

Plesetsk Cosmodrome Plesetsk Cosmodrome () is a Russian spaceport located in Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, near the town of Plesetsk, from which it takes its name. Until 2025 and the commissioning of the Andøya Space, Andøya base in Norway, it was the only operati ...

, officially unacknowledged until 1983. In 1969, a group used simple radio equipment to monitor the

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 was a spaceflight conducted from July 16 to 24, 1969, by the United States and launched by NASA. It marked the first time that humans Moon landing, landed on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin l ...

mission and calculated its orbits. According to the group, in December 1972 a member "pick dup Apollo 17 on its way to the Moon". In 1973 the group tracked Skylab and in July 1975, the team supported ITN in their coverage of the Soyuz – Apollo link up which took place 140 miles over

Bognor Regis Bognor Regis (), also known as Bognor, is a town and seaside resort in West Sussex on the south coast of England, south-west of London, west of Brighton, south-east of Chichester and east of Portsmouth. Other nearby towns include Littleham ...

on 17 July 1975. In 1978 the group predicted the crash of Kosmos 954 spacecraft. In May 1985, Geoffrey Perry talked about the project in the Radio 4 programme ''The Kettering Project''. In March 1987, Channel 4 featured the Group in the programme ''Sputniks, Bleeps & Mr Perry''. Pictures of the school's space tracking team, originally published in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' newspaper, would later find their way onto record covers of

The Wonder Stuff The Wonder Stuff are a British alternative rock musical ensemble, band. Originally based in Stourbridge in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England, the band's first lineup released four albums and nearly 20 singles and EPs, enjoying ...

for their album, '' Construction for the Modern Idiot''.

Notable alumni

* H. E. Bates – writer * Thomas Cooper Gotch – painter * Jim Dale – entertainer * John Gill – theologian * Sir Kenneth Parker – High Court Judge * Phil Sawford – Labour MP from 1997 to 2005 for

* Kenneth Woolmer, Baron Woolmer of Leeds – Labour MP from 1979 to 1983 for Batley and Morley * Tony Wright – Labour MP from 1997 to 2010 for

Cannock Chase Cannock Chase, often referred to locally as The Chase, is a mixed area of countryside in the county of Staffordshire, England. The area has been designated as the Cannock Chase National Landscape, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and muc ...

and from 1992 to 1997 for Cannock and Burntwood

References

External links

Kettering Old Grammar School Foundation

Kettering Grammar School Satellite Tracking Group

Satellite Tracking Group – a personal experience

Kettering Satellite Tracking – timeline

* {{authority control Defunct schools in North Northamptonshire Boys' schools in Northamptonshire Defunct grammar schools in England Educational institutions disestablished in 1976 Amateur radio history 1976 disestablishments in England Cold War Buildings and structures in Kettering