St Peter's Catholic Comprehensive School

St Peter's Catholic Comprehensive School is run under the joint trusteeship of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth and a religious order of teachers, the De La Salle Brothers.The headmaster is Mr Anthony McCaffrey, the first non-religious headmaster, since 1992. The school operates from two sites in Bournemouth - the Lower School from Holdenhurst Avenue, Iford, and the Upper School from St Catherine's Road, Southbourne.

St Peter's has achieved both drama and sports specialist school status.

History of the school

St Peter's was opened as a boys' boarding school on the 29 September 1936 with 34 boys. Father Bellanti was the first headmaster and the school was run by Jesuit priests.

In the summer of 1947 the school was handed over to the De La Salle brothers. The last Jesuit community consisted of nine fathers and two brothers. One of the Jesuit priests who was a housemaster at St Peters was Fr. Gerard Hughes S.J., the author of the best selling religious book "God of Surprises" in which he observed St Peter's boys were "affable and undemanding".

From the time of the first De la Salle headmaster, Brother Bernard Brady in 1947, until the last, Brother Bernard Hayward in 1993, the De la Salle brothers improved, enlarged and ran the school. In 1973 it sent nearly 14% of its sixth form to Oxford and Cambridge. At the same time its performances and production of Gilbert and Sullivan operas were reviewed in the local press as being easily of "professional class".Fact|date=April 2008 Under the headmastership of Brother Alan Maurice, the school became a member of the HMC association of public schools. Boaters were allowed to be worn by sixth formers.

The reorganisation of local education and the changes wrought by the Labour government in 1974 offered the opportunity for the school to examine whether it might serve the interests of the wider Catholic community in Bournemouth by becoming non selective. The community decided that their founder St John Baptiste de la Salle had been motivated above all by the desire to widen educational opportunities for those who could not afford it.Fact|date=April 2008

It was therefore during this time that they oversaw the integration of the combining of the St Peter's, the St Thomas More and the Boscombe Convent schools. The notice of intent was published on the 13 October 1978.

To this day it remains one of the very few schools in England to have navigated the transition from an elite selective fee-paying establishment to a comprehensive school.

External links

* [http://www.st-peters.bournemouth.sch.uk/ St Peter's School]
* [http://www.lasalle.org/ De La Salle Brothers]
* [http://www.rc-churches.net/ Local churches in the school catchment area]