Discover

'Adams' Grammar School' is a state grammar school in Newport, Shropshire. Its name is sometimes abbreviated to AGS.

Contents

Background

School life

Entry requirements

History

Previous Heads

Previous Houses

Notable alumni

See also

External links

References

Background

Adams' is a selective state school which admits both boarding and day pupils, and is a specialist technology college. The school, including the sixth form, has approximately 800 pupils (750 boys, 50 girls). The school educates only boys in Years 7 to 11 (ages 11 to 16), while the Sixth Form (ages 16 to 18) is mixed (though as most boys continue from the lower school to the sixth form the gender bias is greatly skewed). The Haberdashers are still important in the running of the school: they provide some of the school's funding and have representatives in its governing body. This influence was significant in warding off a number of closure attempts by a largely hostile local authority in the 1980s, which ceased when the school moved to Voluntary Aided status.

School life

The school is divided into four houses for competitive and pastoral purposes. These are named after notable Salopians:
Clive House is named after Clive of India. Its colour is red, and it is represented by an elephant.
Darwin House takes its name from Charles Darwin. Its unofficial coat-of-arms has depicted variously a lion and Darwin's head, and its colour is royal blue.
Talbot House is named for John Talbot. It is represented by black and white, and its coat of arms, though it has varied, generally includes a dog (although not always a Talbot Hound). The Talbot House motto is ''forte et fidele'', translating to 'strength and faithfulness'.
Webb House, the youngest of the houses, comes from Captain Matthew Webb. It is given an emerald green.
Highlights of the school year include the Smedley and Dixon (rugby and drama) Cups: the inter-house rugby and inter-house drama competitions respectively. The school also has a number of clubs and societies. Examples are Army, Royal Navy and RAF CCF sections. Notable sports include rugby, hockey and cross country, whilst other societies include biology, drama, Further Mathematics and chess clubs as well as the Christian Union and The Adams Grammar School Arts and Debating Society.
Since 1993, the Headmaster has been Mr J.M. Richardson. His deputies are headmasters are Mr M. Warren-Smith (who was formerly head of Darwin House and Religious Studies) and Mr M.J. Barratt.

Entry requirements

Adams' selects pupils based on ability, assessed primarily by an entry exam. This consists of NVR, Verbal Reasoning and Maths papers. There are approximately three applications per place, with an annual intake into year seven of roughly 105 boys. Approximately 15 of these places are allocated for boarders. As well as the exam, other factors are considered, including the applicant's distance from the school and whether an elder sibling is a current pupil.^[1]

History

Adams' was founded in 1656 by William Adams, a wealthy citizen of the City of London and a haberdasher who was born in the town. It was opened on March 25, 1657.
The school, under the headmastership of Reverend Samuel Lea MA, turned down the services of Dr. Samuel Johnson, later to be the pre-eminent scholar of the 18th century, who wrote one of the first English dictionaries.
Charles Dickens (1812- 1870) stayed at the Bear Hotel, now called Beaumaris House, that forms part of the school's Boarding House. Chetwynd House was formerly the home of Elizabeth Parker, the recluse after whom Dickens modelled Miss Havisham in Great Expectations (1861).

Previous Heads

A notable former headmaster is Alec Peterson, who created the International Baccalaureate, headed the Education Studies Department at Oxford University and also ran military intelligence in southeast Asia following World War two.
Another former headmaster is David Taylor, who wrote a history of the school (listed below as a reference).
Tom Collins MA, was a Victorian Headmaster noted for his scholarship in the field of Classics and was the author of a number of books on the subject.
Rev. Samuel Lea MA is noted in the various biographies of Dr.Samuel Johnson for refusing to employ the then young scholar. Johnson was later "immensely pleased" that Lea said it was his greatest claim to fame that he almost taught Johnson.
Rev. Charles Saxton, DD headmaster from 1846 - 1870 was also a theological scholar and published several times in that field.

Previous Houses

Prior to the adoption of house names based on celebrated Salopians referred to in the section above, various houses have been in use at Adams. The last form before the present took the names of the areas to the north and south of the town, Chetwynd and Aston respectively, for 'dayboys', and School for the boarders (in the centre), merging two separate boarding houses as the number of boarders declined in the 1980s. This system was abandoned because it was thought that the houses should mix day and boarding pupils.

Notable alumni

''Former pupils are known as "Old Novaportans" (initiated as "ON").''

★ Simon Bates (born 1947) – Radio disc jockey

★ Michael J. Bassett Film Director and scriptwriter

★ Barrington J. Bayley (born 1937) – Science fiction author

★ Tom Brown (1662-1704) – Satirist

★ Robert Charnock (1663-1696) – Conspirator who planned to kill King William III

★ Jeremy Corbyn (born 1949) – Labour Party MP

★ William Cureton (1808-1864) – Orientalist

★ Ben Day – Radio DJ on 106.5/107.1 The Severn

★ Ewen Henderson (1934-2000) – Sculptor

★ Thomas Hollis (1720-1774) – Benefactor of Harvard and political propagandist

★ Keith Jones – Dean of York since 2004

★ General Sir George Colt Langley KCB (1810-1896)

★ Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851-1940) – Invented the electrical spark ignition for the internal combustion engine and was the first principal of Birmingham University.

★ Thomas Parker (1666-1732) Lord Chancellor from 1714 to 1725 & the last non-royal to act as Sovereign in British political history (11 years later he was impeached for corruption).

★ Thomas Percy (1729-1811) – Bishop of Dromore, poet, editor of ''Tatler'' and ''Spectator'', author of the ''Reliques of Ancient English Poetry''

★ Peter Price (politician), Conservative MEP from 1979-1994

★ James E. Quibell (1867 - 1935) – leading British Egyptologist

★ Matthew Smith – 17th-century spy, intriguer and writer

★ Professor Maurice Stacey (1907-1994) – Worked alongside Sir Norman Haworth to artificially synthesize Vitamin C

★ Phil Wallbank – Frontman of Ripchord

See also

★ Longford Hall - junior boarding house and sports fields owned by the school, about one mile away from the main school site, in the village of Longford.

★ Ryan Palmer - Maths teacher and chess champion.

External links

★ Adams' Grammar School website

★ Adams' Grammar School's most recent OFSTED report

References

★ Taylor D, Taylor R (2002) ''Mr. Adams' Free Grammar School''. Philimore: London. (ISBN 1-86077-221-8)
:'Note', Taylor D is a former headmaster of AGS.