The Radclyffe School


The Radclyffe School is a mixed comprehensive school for 11- to 16-year-olds, located in Chadderton, Greater Manchester, England.

History

Grammar school

The school was originally called Chadderton Grammar School and opened in 1930. It was officially opened in October 1930 by David Lindsay, 27th Earl of Crawford. It had 300 boys and girls, which rose to 700 in 1950 and 900 by 1958. It was decided to split the school into two schools – a boys' and girls'. This provoked protests from parents. In 1959, the school became Chadderton Grammar School for Girls with around 600 girls in the 1960s. The boys school, a grammar-technical school was on Chadderton Hall Road.

Comprehensive

It was renamed Mid Chadderton Comprehensive academy after grammar schools were abolished in September 1975, and the boys' school became the North Chadderton School. The two sites of the North Chadderton Secondary Modern School were split between the two new schools based on the former girls' and boys' schools.. In January 1976, the school pupils voted on a change of name. The name "Radclyffe" was taken from a local land owning family in the 19th century and at one time, had owned the land that the schools stood upon.
Contrary to the aforementioned, pupils were not consulted as to the choice of name; rather the name was presented as a fete accompli through a rigged vote. However, the original torch badge was designed by pupils in a competition.
The school was originally located across two sites – the Lower School on Broadway and the Upper School on Hunt Lane. However, in 2008 a new state of the art school was built at the Hunt Lane site, housing both the lower and upper school students.
The school has a successful Young Enterprise team which first garnered attention in 2007 after winning several awards including the New Start, New Stars Judges Award, Pride in Oldham Award and were Overall Winners at the Oldham Business Awards.
The 10 May 2012 episode of BBC's Question Time was filmed at the school.

Notable former pupils