Parklands High School

Infobox UK school
name = Parklands High School


size =
motto = "Propositi Tenax" (Firm in Purpose)
established = 1960s
specialist = Language College
head_label = Headteacher
head = Mrs C. Hollister
staff =
enrollment =
city = Chorley
county = Lancashire
country = England
postcode = PR7 1LL
LEA = Lancashire
website = http://www.parklands.lancsngfl.ac.uk/

Parklands High School is a comprehensive school with specialist status in Modern Languages since 2003, located in the North West England borough of Chorley, Lancashire.The current headteacher is Mrs C. Hollister. She took over from Mrs J. McGrath in September 2008.

History

Parklands High School was opened in the early 1960s. In the beginning, Parklands was called Chorley Grammar School, the new school building replacing the previous building on Union Street, Chorley, now the public library. Chorley Grammar School, founded in the 17th century, changed its name in 1969, when the school was changed from a Grammar school to a Comprehensive school, to Parklands High School.

The oldest buildings of the school are the North and South wings while the Admin corridor, which also houses the school library, is of similar age. The school has an outdoor changing facility known as the Pavilion or "pavvy", built in 1969.

There was an area of the school known as the ROSLA Block, which was demolished in 2002 to make way for a brand new state of the art Sports Hall and office facility. The ROSLA block was home to the Art rooms and to the year 11 common room but a new building was built to accommodate these known as East Block.The School sports hall has a blue rubber floor ideal for sports such as Badminton, Basketball and Indoor Football. The sports hall also has Cricket batting nets, these are used on a weekly basis by the local cricket club.

The East block was completed in Spring 2003 and is home to two Art rooms, two RE rooms,a science room and two multi-function rooms, there is an ICT suite in the block also and a large room currently used for Drama.

The newest area of school is the extenion to the rear of the school library. This houses two state of the art ICT rooms, each capable of holding thirty students, based on one student per computer. These were completed in 2004.

The school gained specialist Language College status in 2005 and as a result every student from years 7 through to 11 studies languages with the top two sets studying two languages. As a consequence of the last Electronics teacher retiring, Electronics has now been axed from the timetable and has been replaced by Drama. A former storeroom has been converted into a Drama room.

Jean McGrath retired as Head in the summer of 2008. The new Head is the school's former Deputy Head, Claire Hollister.

Language College status

Parklands was first made a Language College in 2003, and was awarded an extra £500,000 for language purposes.The languages that are now taught are French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese. French and German are taught as compulsory language subjects and the other languages are taught in a variety of extra-curricular classes and clubs.

Library

The library is often noted as one of the most popular departments in the school, which is currently run by Mrs. S. Yates.There have been many student librarians over the years, who currently work through a set promotion system, from desk assistant, to trainee library assistant, to library assistant, to librarian, to senior librarian.

Notable Alumni

* David Unsworth, Footballer, formerly of Aston Villa, Everton and West Ham United, currently with Huddersfield.
* Tom Smith (cricketer), currently with Lancashire County Cricket Club.
* Paul Grayson, England Rugby Player

External links

* [http://www.parklands.lancsngfl.ac.uk Parklands High School Web Site]