Frederick Gough School

Frederick Gough School
Building work in September 2014
Address
Grange Lane South Scunthorpe , Lincolnshire , DN16 3NG England
Coordinates	53°33′42″N0°38′14″W / 53.56175°N 0.63725°W / 53.56175; -0.63725
Information
Type	Community school
Motto	Servire est vivere
Established	September 1960
Local authority	North Lincolnshire
Department for Education URN	118097 Tables
Ofsted	Reports
Head teacher	Ben Lawrence
Gender	Co-educational
Age	11to 16
Houses	Harrison Newton Tennyson Wesley
Website	http://www.frederickgoughschool.co.uk

Frederick Gough School is a community secondary school in Scunthorpe, England, for approximately 1,300 pupils aged from 11 to 16.

History

Grammar school

For two years, before it opened, the selected group of 110 were taught at Riddings Secondary School. The Ashby Grammar School (AGS) school badge was designed by the Art mistress, Miss M Balmford, in navy and light blue, with a Knights Templar motif; the Knights Templars was connected to Bottesford, Lincolnshire. ^[1] It would cost £186,000 in 1958. ^[2] Lindsey Education Committee wanted to call it Bottesford Grammar School, and the Scunthorpe education divisional body wanted to call it Queen's Grammar School, there would be 17 teachers, and construction would be finished by June 1960. ^[3] There would be about 350, on the roll, from ages 11–14, with laboratories for physics, chemistry and biology. A sixth form would be in place by 1962. The school was built by R M Phillips & Sons of Brigg, with bricks from Crowle Works. ^{[4] [5]} The headteacher was 41 year old Mr John Tookey, the former deputy head, and head of English, of John Leggott Grammar School. The grammar school opened on Tuesday 6 September 1960, and would cost £273,000.

The grammar school was renamed Frederick Gough Grammar School after Alderman Frederick Gough, the first Chairman of Governors of the school. In November 1960, it was decided to rename the school, as Mr Gough had recently died. Frederick Herbert Baker Gough died aged 77 on Wednesday 5 October 1960 in Scunthorpe War Memorial Hospital. He came from Cardiff, and before the war he had been chief engineer of the Normanby Park steel works. He had been awarded the OBE in the 1943 Birthday Honours. His funeral was on Saturday 8 October 1960 at Ashby Wesley Church, later being buried in Bottesford churchyard. ^{[6] [7] [8]} Hubert Gough, his son, died in January 1990 in Cumbria.

Sir Charles Morris, vice-chancellor of University of Leeds since 1948, was chosen to open the new school in early 1961. ^[9] It was officially opened Thursday 2 March 1961. ^{[10] [11] [12]}

It worked with the John Leggott Grammar School; both offered Russian. ^[13]

In December 1964, 16 year old Trevor Kitson, born 27 February 1948, of Belton Road in Epworth, was offered a place to study chemistry at St Peter's College, Oxford. He was the first at the school to go to such a university. ^{[14] [15] [16] [17]} In September 1962 he had passed seven O-levels, aged 14. ^{[18] [19]} Trevor moved to Palmerston North in the early 1970s, to lecture at Massey University. ^[20]

Comprehensive

It became a comprehensive school in 1968 following the introduction of the Comprehensive School system by the Labour Government in 1965. The first intake of pupils in the new system started in September 1968 and were split with half (co-ed) attending the Frederick Gough School and half (co-ed) going to the Ashby Girls Secondary School.

Headteachers

• 1960 John Geoffrey Tookey, he lived at 24 Brandon Road, with daughters Catherine and Alison; when deputy headmaster of the John Leggott Grammar School, he had a road accident on 30 December 1958, when with his sister, Margaret Plummer of Walsall, which killed his elder daughter Catherine (born 1945), when a British Road Services truck mounted a pavement on Upper Oungate in Tamworth in Staffordshire; Catherine had attended Scunthorpe Grammar School; Alison married in 1973 ^{[21] [22]} he questioned the comprehensive system ^{[23] [24]} ; from 1967, he was the first headmaster of Bramhall County Grammar School, ^[25] leaving in 1979 as deputy head of the Bramhall High School; ^[26] he was born in 1918, and attended Wednesbury Boys' High School, studied English at Downing College, Cambridge, and served in the Royal Artillery from 1940 to 1945; he died on 11 February 2010 in Bramhall
• 1966 Mr Peter H Withington, he died on Friday 2 December 1977, aged 54, at 5 West Common Gardens, having been seriously ill for many weeks ^{[27] [28] [29] [30]}
• September 1978 Brian Timms, aged 41, the former deputy headmaster of Baysgarth School, lived in Goxhill, originally from Portsmouth
• 1989 David Kemp
• September 1996 Geoff Turner
• The current headteacher is called Ben Lawrence (of 2024).

Curriculum

Frederick Gough school has been known^{[ when? ]} as a "Specialist Languages College", but that title was recently disowned.^{[ clarification needed ]} The school teaches French (higher set only, excluding GCSE option) and Spanish.

In 2014 the school benefited from BSF (Building Schools for the Future), a programme introduced by the Labour government. From this it received new toilets, a 3G Sports Pitch, a new sports block and hall and a new English block.

Notable former pupils

• Sir Peter Birkett
• Levi Sutton

References

1. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Saturday 5 July 1958, page 5
2. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Saturday 23 August 1958, page 5
3. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Saturday 20 August 1960, page 5
4. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Tuesday 6 September 1960, page 8
5. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Wednesday 7 September 1960, page 5
6. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Monday 10 October 1960, page 5
7. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Thursday 6 October 1960, page 1
8. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Thursday 17 November 1960, page 5
9. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Tuesday 27 December 1960, page 5
10. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Friday 3 March 1961, page 7
11. Lincolnshire Echo Friday 3 March 1961, page 7
12. Gainsborough Evening News Tuesday 7 March 1961, page 4
13. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Saturday 24 June 1961, page 3
14. Daily Express Wednesday 30 December 1964, page 7
15. Daily Mirror Wednesday 30 December 1964, page 4
16. Grimsby Evening Telegraph Wednesday 30 December 1964, page 7
17. Louth Standard Friday 1 January 1965, page 1
18. Daily Mirror Monday 17 September 1962, page 20
19. Daily Express Tuesday 18 September 1962, page 8
20. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Friday 10 August 1984, page 7
21. Grimsby Evening Telegraph Thursday 1 January 1959, page 5
22. Grimsby Evening Telegraph Wednesday 25 February 1959, page 8
23. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Friday 22 November 1963, page 7
24. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Saturday 28 November 1964, page 5
25. Manchester Evening News Wednesday 22 March 1967
26. Wilmslow Advertiser Thursday 14 June 1979, page 20
27. Withington Trust
28. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Saturday 3 December 1977, page 1
29. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Monday 12 June 1978, page 8
30. Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph Tuesday 14 November 1978, page 10