Ackworth School

Infobox School | name = Ackworth School

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imagesize = 300px
motto = Non Sibi Sed Omnibus
established = 1779
type = Independent
principal = Peter Simpson
enrollment = 587
free_label2 = Age Range
free_text2 = 2 to 18
location =Ackworth, Pontefract, West Yorkshire
WF7 7LT
United Kingdom
website = [http://www.ackworthschool.com/ www.ackworthschool.com]

Ackworth School is an independent school located in the village of High Ackworth, near Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England. It is one of eight Quaker Schools in England. The school (or more accurately its headmaster) is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and SHMIS ( [http://www.shmis.org.uk/] ). The headmaster is Peter Simpson, who succeeded Martin Dickinson in 2004. The deputy heads are Lorna Anthony and Jeffery Swales.

The school has a nursery that takes children aged 2 to 4, a Junior Department that takes children age 5 to 11, and the Senior School for students aged 11 to 18. The boarding facilities cater for Senior School pupils only.

Originally a boarding school for Quaker children, today most of Ackworth's 587 pupils are day pupils. About half of the boarding pupils are from overseas, and are predominantly (Hong Kong) Chinese or Japanese although there are increasing numbers of boarders from other countries, including Germany, Morocco and other parts of Africa.

Most of the current pupils are not Quakers, but the school retains a Quaker ethos and is able to offer means-tested Bursary awards to children from Quaker families. There is a very short Quaker-style silence at assembly and before meals.

History

Ackworth School was founded by John Fothergill in 1779 as a boarding school for Quaker boys and girls. Prior to the school's foundation, the building was a foundling hospital created by Captain Thomas Coram [ [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WO4BAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA6&ots=cZlUC7hc7y&dq=History+of+Ackworth+School&output=html The History of Ackworth School] ] .

Coat of Arms

On December 15 1959, Ackworth School was granted a coat of arms by the Kings of Arms. The school's coat of arms is made of the white rose of Yorkshire ("barbed and seeded"), acorns ("slipped" - which means "with a bit of stalk"), and the lamb, which is a device shown on the arms of the Foundling Hospital. It also features the school motto - "Non Sibi Sed Omnibus" ("Not for oneself but for all").

chool life

Houses

The school has four houses: Woolman, Gurney, Penn and Fothergill. Penn, Gurney and Woolman were all famous Quakers, and John Fothergill, also a Quaker, was the founder of the School. Every pupil is assigned to one of the four houses at the start of their time at the school for inter-house events, which include sport, music, drama, poetry and art. The event trophies are hung in the school dining hall. Currently, Penn have the most trophies, with seven. Woolman have the least: only one.

Students are also divided for meals according to their houses. Students of Penn and Woolman eat lunch in Boys Dining Room, and Gurney and Fothergill students eat in Girls Dining Room. For breakfast, students are still segregated by sex. For dinner, students in the first to fourth year eat earlier than those in fifth and sixth form, and everyone eats in Boys Dining Room.

Uniform

The school uniform consists of grey trousers, light blue shirt, navy school tie, and navy blue jumper for boys, and navy skirt, blue and white striped blouse, and navy jumper for girls.

The sixth form boys wear a white shirt and grey trousers with a burgundy jumper or black jacket, while sixth form girls wear a white blouse and black skirt with a burgundy jumper. There is also a games jumper which features the school logo.

Music

Ackworth has a strong musical tradition, with every first year student being given free tuition on three instruments. In 1995 a purpose-built music facility was built on the site of one of the old boarding houses, comprising a recital hall with seating for 180, 14 practice rooms, 2 classrooms, a music library and a recording studio [ [http://www.ackworthschool.com/pages/about.php?id=26&parent=yes Music ] ] . Summer schools are sometimes held here during school holidays.

Boarding

Boarders live in separate Boys' and Girls' boarding houses. Until 1997 the school timetable included Saturday morning lessons, leaving Wednesday afternoons free, providing a more balanced week for boarders. The changing demographic of the school has led to this being phased out.

ixth Form

When students reach the Sixth Form, they are all allocated a shared or single study in designated areas. There are two study blocks for Lower Sixth (known as the West Wing Studies and the Old Art Block), and two for Upper Sixth (known as the Fothergill Studies and the Old Library). Sixth Formers have free periods where they are encouraged to study. Students must stay within school premises during these free periods. For Lower Sixth, students have seven lessons of each of their four chosen subjects, and nine study periods. In Upper Sixth, students have eight lessons of each of their three subjects, and thirteen study periods.

Charity Week

Each year in the week before October half term is Ackworth's Charity Week. Two charities, one national and one international, are chosen which the school then raises money for through a series of events. Included within these events are cake stalls, auctions, concerts and the sale of doughnuts and hot dogs. Up until 2008, one event involved putting Sixth formers in stocks and allowing younger students to throw water at them, but this event was replaced by a "Covent Garden" style series of events on the Green, with Sixth form students performing events such as singing and gymnastics with other students encouraged to leave money to show support for specific activites.

One of the most popular events of Charity Week is the Staff/6th Form Entertainment, which takes place on the Wednesday night every year. The Sixth form and certian members of staff are encouraged to prepare a series of sketches to entertain younger students. In the middle of the event, a fundraising activity occurs, where the Sixth form try to get more money from the other students.

On the Thursday of Charity Week is Founder's Day, the day on which in 1779 the school was founded. For this day, the whole school gathers in the Meeting House and sings the Founder's Day Hymn before each year group departs to go for a walk at a specific location.

Union with other Quaker schools

In 2007 the National Quaker Choral Festival was held at Ackworth School, where pupils from Quakers schools all over England came to sing in a large choir to Karl Jenkins' "The Armed Man".

In 2009 the Bridge Film Festival, held at Brooklyn Friends School for the last nine years, will be held at Ackworth. It is a Quaker Film Festival in which students make a film which is judged and prizes are awarded. Ackworth entered the 2008 festival, sending several students to Brooklyn Friends School in New York to witness the festival.

Alumni

Ackworth School's former pupils are called . There is an active Old Scholars association ( [http://aosa.org.uk/] ), with an annual Easter gathering in the school. Notable old scholars include:

*Elizabeth Robson (1771–1843), Quaker minister
*Jacob Post (1774–1855), Quaker religious writer
*William Darton (1781–1854), publisher
*Thomas Hancock (1783–1849), physician and epidemiologist
*Joseph Sams (1784–1860), bookseller and antiquities dealer
*Samuel Tuke (1784–1857), philanthropist and asylum reformer
*Susanna Corder (1787–1864), educationist and Quaker biographer
*Thomas Edmondson (1792–1851), inventor of the first railway ticket printing machine
*William Howitt (1792–1879), writer William Howitt in the Dictionary of National Biography now in the public domain]
*Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen (1792–1836), poet and translator
*Henry Ashworth (1794–1880), cotton master
*Benjamin Barron Wiffen (1794–1867), biographer
*George Edmondson (1798–1863), headmaster of Queenwood Hall
*Sarah Ellis (1799–1872), writer and educationist
*John Priestman (1805–1866), worsted manufacturer and pacifist
*James Wilson (1805–1860), economist, founder of "The Economist", politician, and Financial Member of the Council of India, 1859–1860
*Anna Richardson (1806–1892), philanthropist, slavery abolitionist and pacifist
*Henry Richardson (1806–1885), philanthropist and pacifist
*Thomas Thomasson (1808–1876), cotton master
*Henry Doubleday (1810–1902), starch manufacturer and comfrey cultivator
*Thomas Lister (1810–1888), poet and naturalist
*Jane Procter (1810–1882), headmistress of Polam Hall, Darlington, and temperance campaigner
*John Bright (1811–1889), politician
*Thomas Harvey (1812–1884), philanthropist
*William Allen Miller (1817–1870), chemist
*Henry Tennant (1823–1910), General Manager, North Eastern Railway, 1870–1891
*William Farrer Ecroyd (1827–1915), worsted manufacturer and politician
*Francis Frith (1822–1898), photographer
*John Howard Nodal (1831–1909), journalist and dialectologist
*Sir James Reckitt (1833–1924), starch, blue and polish manufacturer
* William Marshall Cooper (1833–1921), Civil engineer, artist, surveyor and cartographer
*John Gilbert Baker (1834–1920), botanist
*Henry Bowman Brady (1835–1891), naturalist and pharmacist
*Sir Henry Binns (1837–1899), Prime Minister of Natal, 1897–1899
*Alfred Darbyshire (1839–1908), architect
*Henry Ashby (1846–1908), paediatrician
*Wilson Worsdell (1850–1920), railway engineer
*Joseph Southall (1861–1944), painter and pacifist
*John Henry Salter (1862–1942), naturalist and diarist
*Eva Gilpin (1868–1940), founder and headmistress of the Hall School, Weybridge
*William Bone (1871–1938), chemist and fuel technologist
*Basil Bunting (1900–1985), poet
*Sir Joseph B. Hutchinson (1902–1988), geneticist and professor of agriculture
*Kathleen Tillotson (1906–2001), literary scholar
*Geoffrey Barraclough (1908–1984), historian
*Sir Arthur Snelling (1914–1996), Diplomat
*Peter Strevens (1922–1989), linguistic scholar
*James Willstrop (born 1983), squash player
* Dr. Fiona Wood, burns treatment pioneer, Australian of the Year

References

Further reading:

* "Ackworth School Annual reports."
* "Ackworth School, Then and now: Ackworth School bicentenary exhibition catalogue". (Pub. 1979).
* "Alphabetical list of scholars 1779-1979". Prepared by Arthur G. Olver, typescript.
* "The Cupola: the Ackworth School magazine", West Yorkshire Archives, Wakefield.
* Foulds, V.E. "Ackworth School." (Pub. 1991).
* Foulds, V.E. "So numerous a family: 200 years of Quaker education at Ackworth." (Pub. 1979).
* Thompson, H. "A history of Ackworth School". (Pub. 1879).
* Vipont, Elfrida "Ackworth School: from its Foundation in 1779 to the Introduction of Co-Education in 1946" London: Lutterworth Press (Pub. 1959).
* Linney, Geo. F "The History of Ackworth School". (Pub. 1853).

See also:
*List of Friends Schools

External links:
* [http://www.ackworthschool.com/ Ackworth School website]
*NRA|O37607