Shaftesbury School is a
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 day school located in
Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury () is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is on the A30 road, west of Salisbury, Wiltshire, Salisbury and north-northeast of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester, near the border with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hi ...
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 ...
of
Dorset
Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...
.
Previously a
voluntary controlled
A voluntary controlled school (VC school) is a state-funded school in England and Wales in which a foundation or trust (usually a Christian denomination) has some formal influence in the running of the school. Such schools have less autonomy th ...
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
school administered by the
Diocese of Salisbury
The Diocese of Salisbury is a Church of England diocese in the south of England, within the ecclesiastical Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the historic county of Dorset (which excludes the deaneries of Bournemouth and Christchurch, ...
and
Dorset County Council
Dorset County Council was the county council of Dorset in England. It was created in 1889 and abolished in 2019. Throughout its existence, the council was based in Dorchester.
Bournemouth and Poole were made independent from the county counci ...
, The school converted to
academy status under the Diocese of Salisbury in June 2014. The origins of the school date back to 1718 when the original ‘Blue Coat School’ was founded in Shaftesbury, and the school offered boarding from 1898 until 2023. Before its closure, it was one of only thirty-nine state boarding schools in England.
The school currently has around a thousand students who each belong to one of four houses. Melbury (Green), Duncliffe (Red), Hambledon (Blue) and Gold (Yellow). The boarding house underwent a £3 million refurbishment and expansion in 2012 and now has over one hundred students from around the world.
Shaftesbury School 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. Shaftesbury School's sixth form provision has links to
Sturminster Newton High School in
Sturminster Newton
Sturminster Newton is a town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish situated on the River Stour, Dorset, River Stour in the north of Dorset, England. The town is at the centre of the Blackmore Vale, a large dairy agriculture region around w ...
, and students in the sixth form have the option 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 on two sites.
See also
*
List of English and Welsh endowed schools (19th century)
This is a list of some of the endowed schools in England and Wales existing in the early part of the 19th century. It is based on the antiquarian Nicholas Carlisle's survey of "Endowed Grammar Schools" published in 1818 with descriptions of 475 sc ...
References
External links
Shaftesbury School official website
Educational institutions established in 1718
1718 establishments in England
Secondary schools in Dorset
Church of England secondary schools in the Diocese of Salisbury
Boarding schools in Dorset
Academies in Dorset
Shaftesbury
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