Category Archives: School

News about the school, current pupils, teams and staff

Donation overcomes duck-related delays

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In February 2006 the OBA kindly donated £500 to the School to mark the OBA Centenary. The idea behind the donation was to spruce up the area in the quad outside the Headmaster’s Office. This was intended to include developing the pond with a fountain and waterfall and general maintenance to make the area a useful teaching resource.

However, wildlife had a different idea! Ducks kept arriving each year to breed in the quad, and always at an awkward time of year – namely during exam season! Indeed, during one exam the baby ducklings attempted their first flight. Unfortunately, 6 of the 8 ducklings mistook the windows of the hall for open sky and slid slowly to the ground with broken necks! These 6 ducklings served a purpose, however, and went towards feeding members of the Physics Department the following weekend…

The School took advice from the RSPCA regarding relocation of the ducks, but there were few viable options suggested. Indeed, the School could be prosecuted if the ducks were ‘interfered with’ in any way. Netting was the RSPCA’s preferred option, but the prohibitive cost ruled this out.

The quad therefore continued as an unkempt pond and the OBA donation sat in a bank account gathering interest. During the summer of 2009, the School was selected to participate in ‘Healthy Schools +’, having been the first school in Bournemouth to achieve ‘Healthy Schools’ status. This secured further funding to allow the School to address ‘health inequalities’ and create ‘legacy projects’ that would benefit students over a number of years.

As a consequence of this during the summer holiday of 2009, the pond area was completely cleared and covered in black plastic. A hard-standing for a greenhouse was created and a fence erected, to separate the area slightly from the hall. The OBA agreed that their donation could be put towards this project and a greenhouse is due to be purchased and installed in the quad. The greenhouse will have a plaque installed which will commemorate the greenhouse as ‘The Old Bournemouthians’ Centenary Greenhouse’.

The area will be used with all year groups in lessons – especially with food technology appearing on the School curriculum – and also as somewhere for younger students to pass lunchtimes in a productive manner by weeding and tending to the vegetables. They may even be able to eat the fruit of their labours in the canteen!

The School would like to thank the OBA for their kind donation and apologise for the fact that it took so long to spend the money. However, the resulting project is hopefully a fitting way to mark the OBA Centenary.

Jasper Dodds on film

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Norman Martin (1942-47) has sent in this photo of his form group taken in 1946 and featuring the renowned J.J. ‘Jasper’ Dodds. Norman writes:

My only memento of my time at Bournemouth School is [this] photograph taken in 1946 showing the 5th form of that year presided over by J.J. himself and flanked by two of the veterans of that form, Messers Mudway and Hunt. Some of the members of that form had carried over from previous years and as the youngest member, aged 15, (5th from the left, back row) I recall thinking that I had joined a class of young men. Charles Gray was another member of that form but was apparently absent that day. (Charles Gray was to become a famous actor – perhaps best known as Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever?)

Jasper Dodds was indeed unlike any other member of staff at that time. He was a strict disciplinarian. He demanded (and got) everybody’s absolute attention, no one ever failed to hand in homework and his was the only class whose pupils always lined up outside the room whilst waiting for him to arrive for a lesson instead of sitting around larking about! And all this without ever having to raise his voice. Fifty years on, I have to say I count myself fortunate to have come under his wing and to have seen him in his prime.

At the time there were very few private cars on the road, Jasper drove to school in a pre-war Morris 8 registration number CEL 57. The fact that, even today, the number comes easily to mind speaks volumes. Everyone’s radar was tuned to this vehicle and it needed to be because to be spotted by J.J. walking along East Way from the bus stop in Charminster Road without wearing the school cap was practically a capital offence. The sight of CEL 57 appearing over the top of the hill as it approached the school was the signal for the bareheaded ones to make themselves scarce.

Of his own time since leaving the school, Norman says:

I left school to work for Preston & Redman the solicitors in Hinton Road. After National Service I joined the Trust Division of Lloyds Bank and managed branches in Guernsey, Ipswich and Nottingham before retiring as head of financial services in the North West region based in Liverpool.

Headmaster John Granger announces retirement

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John Granger has announced that he will retire as Head of Bournemouth School in August 2009. This extended period of notice will give the governors the opportunity to seek his replacement in a measured manner. The Old Bournemouthians Association would like to record their grateful thanks for the support that John has shown the Association during his tenure at East Way.

Eric Bennett passes away

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Former Headmaster Eric Bennett (1957 – 1970) sadly passed away on October 8th 2005, aged 94. He was the third headmaster in the history of the school and oversaw many changes as education developed during the 1960’s, in particular with the rapid expansion in the number of pupils progressing to university. He leaves a widow Ria and sons Anthony and Stephen to whom we send our sincere sympathy.

Urfan Mirza passes away

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It was with a sense of shock, disbelief and great sadness that we learnt this morning of the untimely death of Mr. Urfan Mirza who had taught chemistry at the school since 1996. He was only 38. As far as we know he passed way peacefully, having just returned to his family home in Southampton after going jogging. He will be greatly missed by his current pupils and by many previous students who have benefited from his dedication and understanding of his subject for the past 8 years. Our thoughts are with his mother and his sisters.

Old cricket team photo

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The Bournemouth School cricket team in 1952

Back row: Mick Fionda, Paul Oliver, Len Iggulden, Mike 'Walt' Stamp... Henderson, Harry Ridehalgh. Front row: Dave Munt, Don Gardiner, John O'Brien, John Jacobs, Tom Hawkins

Mick Fionda (1947-52) has sent this picture of a Bournemouth School cricket team taken in 1952. “I thought this photograph of 1952 may raise a few laughs with someone, somewhere,” he says.

Bournemouth School: the book

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The front cover of the Centenary Book

The front cover of the Centenary Book

In preparation for the centenary celebrations, David Hilliam has producing an excellent book looking back over the first 100 years.It runs to 150 pages and has fascinating sections from whichever era you were at Bournemouth School.

Written by former Deputy Head David Hilliam, there is something for everybody, including the School song, a year-by-year chronology of the School, a large sports section written by Mike Webb, a Bournemouth School Quiz, photos of John Hawkins, Bernie Walker, J.J. (Jasper) Dodds and all seven headmasters. There is a fascinating notice of the evacuation of Taunton’s School’s pupils dated August 1939.

These books are now available also from Graham Jones at 30 Wishart Gardens, Muscliffe, Bournemouth BH9 3QZ, for £10 + £2.50 postage.

The first centenary: 100 years of Bournemouth School

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The following extract is taken from today’s Bournemouth Daily Echo:

AS BOURNEMOUTH School celebrates its 100th birthday today, teachers and their 1,000 pupils have begun experimenting with state-of-the-art computer facilities and an Internet video-link with schools here and abroad. It’s a stark contrast to the school’s opening day on January 22, 1901, when 54 boys started at their brand new school with its austere classrooms fitted with only blackboards and functional decorations such as maps and charts. The school had just opened in Portchester Road, having been founded by Dr John Roberts Thomson a freeman of the borough who first raised the idea of the school in 1893. Bournemouth School’s first head, Dr Edward Fenwick, took up his post on a salary of £100 per year and remained there until his retirement in 1932. The 1906 prospectus of study, which included natural science, drawing, vocal music, drill and gymnastics alongside history, geography, shorthand and book keeping, is still the foundation of what pupils study today.

A grant of £30,000 from the Wolfson Foundation has enabled the school to buy £50,000 worth of new computers, allowing science pupils to collaborate with professionals around the world on major research projects. Currently French, German and Spanish are the three languages on offer, along with after-school lessons in Italian, Japanese and Mandarin, with Arabic and Portuguese soon to be added. Former pupils of the school, known as Old Bournemouthians recalled a ‘family’ feel to the establishment in the early days.

Among happy recollections is the request to the boys from Captain Scott for a subscription towards the expenses of his South Pole expedition and the subsequent fund-raising which allowed a sleigh dog to be purchased. The ravages of the First World War followed and for the next four years the pages of school newsletter The Bournemouthian were filled with reports of former pupils and staff killed in action. In all, at least 651 young men who had been or were attached to the school served, and 98 of those died, while 95 were wounded. The school’s second headmaster Mr JE Parry took up the reins in 1932. With his daunting educational background he is said in the school’s own centenary publication to have “walked about his school with the charisma of Jove himself”

As war broke out in 1939 the new Bournemouth School site in East Way had been built and through the war years the school became home to evacuated children and rescued soldiers as well as to pupils. It was the 1960s before changes began in earnest. A new dining hall was added, a new physics laboratory, two new classrooms and then in 1960 Bournemouth School for Girls’ opened its new buildings at the bottom of East Way, although boys and girls were discouraged from meeting. Not until the I980s could boys and girls meet each other for 10 minutes each day during the lunch hour without inciting official disapproval.

In 1966 the biggest transformation took place with the building of the sixth form block including a lecture theatre and a library. But disaster struck in May 1973 when the old school hall built in 1939 was destroyed by fire and it was 1975 before a new hall had been built in its place. The school’s status has changed a number of times over the years. Up to 1973 it was ruled by Bournemouth Education Committee, by Dorset County Council from 1974 to 1990 and it had its independence as a grant-maintained school from 1990 to 1999. Bournemouth Borough Council once again had its own education committee in September 1999 and the school became a foundation school with a reconstituted and larger than ever board of governors.

Pupils will be taking a day’s holiday on the school’s birthday as a staff training day has been called. Current head John Grainger who took up his post in 1996 said: “We carry the name of Bournemouth School with a lot of pride we are the school of Bournemouth. “Our new sports hall opened last year and this year our big news is that we have been designated a specialist language college.” Chair of the Old Bournemouthians Jim Green commented: “Bournemouth can be very proud of Bournemouth School. Pupils’ examination results are always high in the national averages and the staff are very approachable and progressive.”