Gillingham School, founded in 1516, is steeped in history, and enjoys strong links with the local community. From our North Dorset location, we offer a high quality, enjoyable educational experience to young people from Gillingham, its surrounding villages and beyond, including Somerset and Wiltshire.
Appointed September 2017
We recognise that children have many abilities, talents and personalities and work with them in providing the support necessary for success. Offering a range of experiences, both in and out of the classroom, students can learn and develop innovation, and lifelong skills for their future endeavours. We are proud of our Alumni network, with many returning to inspire the future generation.
Gillingham School is a friendly, welcoming and inspiring school, characterised by high expectations and respectful relationships. Our students feel safe, secure and confident. The positive ethos and strong values of our school are longstanding features which help shape the character of our students.
Our motto ‘Docendo Discimus,’ translates to ‘Through Teaching, We Learn’. Learning is a shared, life-long process and the partnerships between students, teachers and parents are important in supporting development.
We look forward to welcoming you to our school.
Gillingham School is one of the oldest schools in Dorset and indeed, in the country. The history of how it started continues to have benefits for the school we have today, and we hope that the spirit in which it was founded is still reflected in our culture and ethos.
In 1516, a group of local landowners gave certain lands to form a trust fund, for the purpose of funding a schoolmaster to teach the children of Gillingham (of course in those days that meant boys). These landowners were the men who founded the original Gillingham School; they are the founders that we commemorate each year at our Founders’ Day awards ceremony.
These were men who believed in the importance of the future of young people, and in their local community as a whole. As well as founding the school, they contributed funds for maintenance of the church, the local roads and bridges, and to provide support for the poor. There was no central government as we know it today, nor any Dorset County Council, to be held responsible for these things at that time. Small towns like Gillingham would only grow and develop if the wealthier local residents chose to contribute.
Many schools were established in this way: many of them didn’t stand the test of time and are no more; others invested in expanding, by a combination of larger donations and through charging tuition fees, and gradually developed into the famous public schools of Britain; some, like Gillingham, continued quietly and efficiently as schools serving their community, eventually becoming grammar schools and comprehensive schools.
Over the centuries, the school has had several incarnations, but the link back to its foundation is continuous. Gillingham Free School was established in a building opposite St Mary The Virgin church. The school expanded through to the 19th century; in 1876 it moved into new buildings on this present site and became Gillingham Grammar School. In 1903 the school became a grant-aided school, with education paid for from public funds from that time onwards, also opening its doors to students from the nearby part of Wiltshire. In 1916 girls were admitted for the first time (although there had been a separate school for younger girls for some time which was then absorbed). In 1940 a second (secondary modern) school was built on the same site, so that children of all abilities were catered for, but then, in 1959, these were amalgamated back into the single Gillingham School – then as now providing education for all types of young people in the area: boys and girls; rich and poor; academic, sporty, artistic, practical or caring.
Gillingham School is now a large state-funded school, however the trust fund started by the Founders has remained and been added to throughout our history. Each year it provides a small but extra income that allows us to do a few extra things – like give prizes on celebration days; provide financial support for students who need extra funds to pursue a particular talent; or pay entry fees so that teams of students can enter national competitions in sport, music, maths or others. Our board of governors has a special responsibility to administer the trust, to maximise the income and to ensure that it is spent for the good of the education of the children of Gillingham and its surrounding area.
School Houses
Baxter, Clarendon, Davenant, Fletcher, George Butler, Hurley, Lyndon, Matthews, Seager, Wagner.
