Forest Hill School

Forest Hill School is a boys' secondary comprehensive school located in Forest Hill, in the London Borough of Lewisham. The school is in federation with the girls' secondary, Sydenham School, which is nearby.

Forest Hill School
The 'three schools' logo
Location
Forest Hill
,
London Borough of Lewisham

England
Coordinates51.4318°N 0.0477°W / 51.4318; -0.0477
Information
TypeSecondary Comprehensive
Established1956
Local authorityLewisham
Department for Education URN100745 Tables
OfstedReports
Head teacherMike Sullivan
GenderBoys (Girls in Sixth Form)
Age11 to 18
Enrolment1360
HousesDrake (Red)
Harvey (Yellow)
Reynolds (Light Blue)
Shackleton (Green)
PublicationOur Voice
Websiteforesthillschool.co.uk

In 2005 the school was given Performing Arts status for its Drama, Dance, Music and Art courses and currently has a silver artsmark from the English Arts Council.[1][2] The school is now often oversubscribed and the catchment area has recently been reduced by around 200 yards. The school has an Investors in People award.[3]

History

Forest Hill Comprehensive School opened in September 1956. It was a flagship of the London County Council's new policy of building comprehensive schools that aimed to breakdown the previous national policy of selecting children, largely on 11-plus results, to attend grammar, technical or secondary modern schools. It eventually grew to around 1,400 boys.

The first head teacher was Alexander E. Howard, who was a leading national figure in technical education.[4] In its early years the school attracted considerable interest from educationalists. The following is a report of a visit to the school in July 1957 by the American educationalist Flaud C. Wooton.

I spent June 4, 1957, with William H. Perkins (Educational Director, Imperial Chemicals, Ltd., London) and John Aseltine (San Diego educator) at the London County Council comprehensive school at Forest Hill. That school was opened in September, 1956, and currently enrolls 900 to 1000 boys. Its buildings are new and among the best I saw last spring in eight countries of Europe. The teaching staff is relatively young, well trained, vigorous, and enthusiastic. Above all, the headmaster, Mr. A. E. Howard, in frank discussion, revealed educational ideas and described the school's purposes and practices with combined competence and optimism. As the English comprehensive school spreads, it will, if it lives up to ForestHill, brighten the future of secondary education in Great Britain.[5]

The academic quality of the early cadre of teachers is indicated by the careers that some went on to. Paul Ashbee became Professor of Archaeology at the University of Anglia. Laurie Taylor (sociologist) taught English and Drama and went on to a distinguished career in Sociology and is for his broadcasting. Brian Brookes, who taught Botany, went on to become a leading naturalist, with expertise in the plants of the Scottish Highlands, and environmental consultant, being awarded the MBE in 1983 for his services to education.[6] David Stanbury, who taught Biology and became the School’s third Headmaster, researched and wrote on Robert Fitzroy, the captain of HMS Beagle, on which Charles Darwin was naturalist.[7] Christ’s College Cambridge holds a collection of Stanbury’s papers.[8]

The School attracted press attention with many of its activities in the 1960s.[9] In 1962, the School organised a trip to the United States, which the Daily Mirror headlined: ‘An Exceptional School … With Exceptional Boys: 76 Ambassadors from London SE23’.[10] It was described as ‘a grammar, technical, commercial, central and modern school – all in one’, with one boy quoted as saying ‘None of the boys would change Forest Hill School for Eton.’ The school also had its own film unit and produced feature length films including Twenty Four Hundred Pennies (1962)[11] and The Custard Boys (1979)[12] which starred pupils and staff from the school.

In 2016 the school was forced to cut costs by an annual £1.3m, as funding had been cut as part of a political decision at Westminster.[13] The school has since stabilised its financial situation.

Current

In 2005 the school was given Performing Arts status for its Drama, Dance, Music and Art courses and currently has a silver artsmark from the English Arts Council.[14][15] The school is now often oversubscribed and the catchment area has recently been reduced by around 200 yards. The school has an Investors in People award.[16]

Houses

The four houses of Forest Hill are named after famous people of the 16th, 17th, 18th and early 20th centuries. While the house only initially determines which form the student is in, it also forms the basis of sport teams throughout each pupil's career at the school.

Originally there were six houses, but two were later dropped: Browning and Newton. When there were six houses Browning's house colour was red, Drake's dark blue, Reynold's light blue and Newton's maroon.

The new main building of Forest Hill School seen during redevelopment in September 2007

Redevelopment

Sports Hall

In 2006 the school's new £4.5M state-of-the-art sports facility was opened with lottery funding and help with Sport England and The FA Charter Standard Schools Program.[17] The facility features a large air conditioned sports hall with basketball nets, indoor cricket, indoor football markings and goals and a scoreboard. The other part of the gym includes a fitness suite, cafè, space for trampolining and table tennis, new changing room facilities with showers and also two of the old three gyms. The sports centre opened on top of Gym 3, but was also expanded towards Bampton Road on the other side of the school.

Main building
The new school during redevelopment

The school began a major redevelopment project in July 2006 which completed in January 2008.[18] The only part of the school which remains unchanged is the current art block, which was built recently. The rest of the school was demolished and rebuilt from the ground up with the three floor plan changed to a higher four story building. The new school building now features a huge atrium which doubles up into a fully functioning theatre, two fully equipped drama rooms, a separate theatre, a fully equipped music department with a Recording studio and a Mac computer room. There is also a dance studio with sprung floors, mirrors, and a 600 watt speaker system.

Notable people educated at Forest Hill School

References
  1. Specialist Schools and Academies Trust Archived April 9, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  2. Artsmark Archived 2007-05-25 at the Wayback Machine
  3. Welcome to Investors in People
  4. A.E. Howard, ‘Technical Subjects in Secondary Schools’, Education + Training, 1 (1959), 7–9, doi: 10.1108/eb001539
  5. Flaud C. Wooton in History of Education Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Autumn, 1956), pp. 28–30.
  6. A. Burns, ‘Obituary: Brian Brookes’, Watsonia, 24 (2001), 125–6; M Lawley, ‘Brian Sydney Brookes’, Journal of Bryology, 23 (2001) 345-345, DOI: 10.1179/jbr.2001.23.4.345
  7. D. Stanbury, A Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S.Beagle, London: Folio Society, 1977.
  8. College Archives, Christ’s College Cambridge, https://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/current-students/college-archives
  9. ‘Full Marks … for “all-in” schools’, Daily Mirror, 24 October 1961; ‘Royal Cruise for 5 Boys and a Girl’, Daily Mirror, 17 April 1965, 3.
  10. Daily Mirror, 17 August 1962.
  11. https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b8908289a
  12. https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b70752c55
  13. Weale, Sally (18 July 2017). "One out, all out! The school where cuts are pushing teachers to the brink". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
  14. Specialist Schools and Academies Trust Archived April 9, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  15. Artsmark Archived 2007-05-25 at the Wayback Machine
  16. Welcome to Investors in People
  17. TheFA.com – Charter Standard Schools
  18. http://www.foresthill.lewisham.sch.uk/new_build_gal.asp
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