The Latymer School
 | |
| Motto | Qui patitur vincit' Literal translation: "Who endures wins". |
|---|---|
| Type | Mixed selective grammar |
| Established | 1624 |
| Students | 1400 |
| Location | , |
| Headteacher | Mark E. Garbett |
| Website | http://www.latymer.co.uk |
The Latymer School is a selective, mixed grammar school in Edmonton, north London. Each year around 181 pupils are admitted to Year 7 (aged 11 or 12, although records suggest some as young as 9) on the basis of competitive examination or (in the case of less than a dozen) musical scholarship. In addition to this around 40 students join the sixth form (aged 16-18) each year, mixing with those pupils (typically close to 180) who have made the transition from year 11 to the first year of sixth form. External applicants to sixth form undergo interviews and must perform sufficiently well at GCSE (or equivalent) level. The school underwent its most recent OFSTED inspection in January 2005[1].
Ethos
According to official canon, the school aims: “To provide a first class, liberal education where pupils achieve their full potential and show consideration for others." This is in conjunction with nine other aims.
Latymer is exceptionally strong academically, performing consistently at or near the top of national league tables, including coming first in national value added tables and achieving the highest proportion of A* grades at GCSE among state schools in 2003. In recent years the school typically produces around 30 successful Oxbridge applicants per year. Its further strengths include a long-standing and strong tradition in music including 5 orchestras, a concert band, choirs and many other voice and instrumental ensembles and a well-supported programme of varied extra-curricular activities.
The school has strong links with other schools across Europe with regular exchanges to Institution de la Sainte-Croix, Tours, France; Heisenberg Gymnasium, Gladbeck, Germany; and School 316 in St Petersburg, Russia. In addition, there are regular recreational trips to the Netherlands for first years, sports trips to Barbados for fifth years, canoe trips to the Ardeche and ski trips to the French Alps. There are also Geography trips to Southern Iceland every two years and Classics trips to Sorrento, Italy, Art trips to New York City and Media Studies trips to Hollywood. Every summer the senior musicians tour in Europe and in recent years have played to audiences in Berlin, Leipzig, Salzburg, Vienna, Prague, Stockholm, Tallinn, Bavaria, Hamburg, Copenhagen and Belgium.
Latymer currently has a house system of six houses named Ashworth, Dolbé, Keats, Lamb, Latymer, and Wyatt (at this time the possibility of creating a further two houses is in discussion). Two houses take their names from local historical figures Charles Lamb and John Keats, while Richard Ashworth and Charles Dolbé are former headteachers. Edward Latymer was the founder and Wyatt house is named after Anne Wyatt, a generous patron of the school.
In the school's pastoral system, from years 7-11, form groups are split according to houses, each form has a form tutor and each year a Head of Year. Upon reaching sixth form, students retain their house links but join smaller mixed form-groups for registration. Each year, the houses compete with each other for the Dormer Shield in events such as house cakes, music, drama and sports. The winning house has their name engraved upon the shield, the runner up receives the Jones Cup. In 2006, the Dormer Shield was jointly won by the Dolbé and Latymer houses.
The school is very active in charity work, with each house choosing one charity to support every year with various fund-raising events such as cake sales, non-uniform days and sponsored silences. One perennial fundraiser is the Dolbe-Keats Bazaar, run by the two houses during one lunchtime in December with stalls and live music to raise money for their charities. The school branch of Amnesty International has a strong following, as does the Latymer World Community Society which supports Fair trade. School policy encourages a large percentage of waste to be recycled.
The PE department offers an extensive extra-curricular programme, and pupils are encouraged to participate regardless of ability level. 56 clubs run throughout the week and 300 pupils take part in activities in the average daily programme. Various fixtures occur every Saturday and most evenings.
Student societies in the school are very active and cover a range of interests including music (bands and barbershop singing groups), politics, debating, psychology, philosophy, animal rights, mathematics, film criticism and juggling.
Facilities
Much of the north end of the school was built in 1910 after the Old Latymer Schoolhouse in Church Street was abandoned. The buildings on the present site were provided by Middlesex County Council at a cost of £6782, and accommodated 150 pupils. Twelve classrooms built in 1924 in the North Block allowed pupil capacity to triple.
The Great Hall, science laboratories and South Block were opened in a ceremony in 1928 by the Duke and Duchess of York (later to become by their majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother). Fully equipped with stage and seating for over 1000 people, the hall is used for school assemblies, concerts, drama productions and other major events.
The gymnasia, art studios and technology block were opened in 1966 by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
The 12 science laboratories and 6 technology rooms (including facilities for graphic design, product design, textiles and cookery) have been completely re-equipped and modernised in the last 5 years.
There is a suite of three ICT rooms containing 200 computers (networked and accessible to pupils and teaching staff), which are used extensively in the teaching of a large number of curriculum subjects.
The Ashworth library holds approximately 20,000 volumes and is run by a chartered librarian. A separate Learning Resources Centre (LRC) contains a further 2,000 reference volumes, a vast selection of periodicals, and computing facilities. There is a Connexions Careers Library with facilities for accessing the latest information on university courses and future career directions.
The sixth form recreation and study area was converted in 2002 from the Jones Lecture Theatre, which had itself been converted from a gymnasium to mark the retirement of Dr. Jones as Headmaster in 1970. The sixth form common room was built in 1984 to mark the retirement of Edward Kelly.
The 'Mills' (after Geoffrey Mills, a long time resident of Enfield borough) building , a performing arts complex, was opened in the spring of 2000 to service the Music, Drama and Media Studies departments. It offers a range of studio-space, larger rooms for music and drama, and air-conditioned individual music practice rooms. This facility and the new Sports and Dining Complex, were envisaged by the then Headteacher Geoffrey Mills and the Governors in 1995.
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The school owns a residential outdoor pursuits centre in Snowdonia National Park, Wales. The centre, Ysgol Latymer, was established on the site of an old primary school situated in the small village of Cwm Penmachno (5 miles from Betws y Coed) in 1966. Since, the school has developed it into a well-equipped residential centre, accommodating up to forty staff and pupils. It acts as a base of operations for trips in the first and third years' week-long stay at the centre. Activities include hill walking, orienteering, mountain biking, rock climbing, abseiling, canoeing, swimming, rafting and skiing. It is the heart of the annual ‘Fourteen Peaks’ challenge when staff and senior students may undertake an extensive programme of hill walks.
A new Sports and Dining Complex was opened in a ceremony by Anne, Princess Royal on May 18 2006. It includes a fitness suite (complete with aerobic and fixed weight equipment), specialist sports science classroom, changing rooms with showers, and a multi-purpose gymnasium, which allowed the broadening of the sports curriculum to badminton, volleyball, table tennis and health and fitness. The facility is a brownfield development, occupying only slightly more area than the previous catering facility from the 1940's. Various environmentally friendly measures are incorporated into its design, including solar panels providing hot water, sun pipes reducing the need for artificial lighting and wind catchers to provide ventilation.
Fresh, hot meals are cooked every weekday in the catering facility which seats 280, and sandwiches are prepared in site. A coffeeshop service will be provided for staff and sixth-formers.
There are 12 acres of playing fields laid out for football, hockey, rugby, cricket, rounders and athletics according to season.
History and traditions
Latymer was established in 1624 on Church Street, Edmonton by bequest of Edward Latymer, a London City merchant in Hammersmith. He named certain properties and estates to fund the education and livelihoods of 'eight poore boies of Edmonton' annually on November 1st with a doublet, a pair of breeches, a shirt, a pair of woolen stockings and shoes. In return for being educated to the age of thirteen at a "petty school" the boys had to wear the red Latymer cross on their sleeves and were under a duty to carry out the provisions of his will "unto the end of the world."
In 1662, John Wild of Edmonton made a bequest, including £4 per annum for the maintenance of a schoolmaster and a similar sum to maintain a poor scholar at Cambridge. This was followed in 1679 with Thomas Style's request of Edmonton of £20 per annum for teaching "twenty poor boys ... Grammar and Latin tongue." Several similar benefactions produced about £550 per annum, which funded the instruction of more than one hundred boys, of which sixty were clothed. For more than a century, no further significant bequests were made until in 1811, Ann Wyatt, a widow from Hackney, left £500 5% Navy Annuities to build a new school, and £100 in the same securities for its maintenance. The school-room was built in 1811 in accordance to her will.
The school did not take on Latymer's name for some centuries, and has only been situated on its present site since 1910. The school motto, Qui Patitur Vincit ('Who endures wins'), was also adopted in 1910 by Richard Ashworth, then headmaster.
Internally, Latymer history is propagated by the establishment. It is traditional for headmasters to lecture students on the school's origins, and their personal and ever-changing interpretation of the school's motto during the first assembly of the academic year.
The Latymer School Song was written in the 1950s by Alice W. Linford, with music by Ronald Cunliffe. It is sung on Foundation Day and by those at the Awards Ceremony.
Souvenirs
The school is currently in talks with officials of Enfield borough council, on the future introduction of school souvenirs. The souvenirs are intended to be sold both at the school itself, and in various local Enfield newsagents. Proposed items include a handbag, stationery and branded food, replicating that of the school's own cafeteria. Concerns and ambiguity over the demand for the line of products has left discussions without conclusion so far. Current headmaster Mark Garbett is acting as a direct representative of the school in pursuing the idea.
The production of Latymer souvenirs had briefly been explored in the past with small-scale sales inside the school itself of various items such as tea/coffee mugs, cutlery and novelty ties, all bearing the school's iconic crest.
Former headmasters
| Name | Year Began | Year Ended | Name | Year Began | Year Ended |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revd. John Brooke, M.A | 1634 | Unknown | John Adam II | 1802 | 1828 |
| Thomas Hare, BA | 1662 | 1666 | Charles Henry Adams | 1828 | 1867 |
| Daniel Callis | 1666 | 1667 | Revd. Dr. Charles Vincent Dolbé, MA, LL.D | 1867 | 1897 |
| John Hare, BA | 1667 | 1679 | William A.C. Shearer, BA | 1897 | 1909 |
| Benjamin Hare | 1680 | 1724 | Richard Ashworth, BA | 1910 | 1928 |
| Thomas Hare II | 1724 | 1737 | Victor S.E. Davis, MA | 1929 | 1957 |
| Zachariah Hare | 1737 | 1742 | Dr. Trefor Jones, MA, P.H.D | 1957 | 1970 |
| James Ware | 1742 | 1771 | Edward S. Kelly | 1970 | 1983 |
| James Ware II | 1771 | 1772 | Geoffry T. Mills, MA | 1983 | 1998 |
| James Draper | 1772 | 1773 | Jackie Hardy, B.Sc., M.Ed., F.I.Biol. | 1998 (Acting Headteacher) | 1999 |
| Samuel Draper | 1773 | 1780 | Michael J. Cooper, OBE, BA, M.I.Biol., FRSA | 1999 | 2005 |
| John Adams | 1781 | 1802 | Mark E. Garbett, MA, M.Ed, NPQH | 2005 | Incumbent |
Notable alumni
- Bruce Forsyth CBE, Entertainer
- Johnny Haynes, Former England football captain
- Syed Kamall, Conservative MEP
- B.J. Wilson, Original drummer of Procol Harum
- Dame Eileen Atkins, Actor