Dartmouth High School (1964-2008)
Dartmouth High School opened in September 1964 as a secondary modern school, becoming comprehensive in September 1969. The original motto, suggested by the Classics Teacher (later a drama teacher) Mr Bruce Graham was, "Gaudet, Tentamine et Virtus" (Strength rejoices in challenge)..
The School originally had 8 houses, four in the A half and four in the B half. The A half houses were Churchill, Elgar, Sutherland and Nuffield. The B half houses were Hillary, Curie, Kennedy and Fleming. In the 1980s Nuffield and Hillary stopped taking pupils, leaving three active Houses in each half of the school.
In 1985 the western edge of the School, including the main Churchill block and Sutherland (including the school kitchens) were seriously damaged in a fire believed to be caused by arson. First year (now called year 7) pupils were allocated form rooms in temporary buildings on the tennis courts and the Maths and English departments used Temporary huts well into the 1990s whilst large sections of the School was rebuilt.
The school's science block was destroyed by fire on 17 November 2003 and had to be completely rebuil
.
It needed about 100 firefighters to bring the blaze under control. Around 200 pupils lost their coursework in the blaze. It was closed for some weeks with the children being coached to other locations to continue their education. Temporary building were constructed pending the planned building of the Q3 academy on the site.
In June 2006 there was a blaze in the first year block. The cause of the fire was because while some engineers were working to fix a spark in the wires, one spark got out of control and the workers accidentally set the building on fire causing a blaze.
The last students left Dartmouth on the 11th July 2008.
Head Teachers
- The school's final head teacheri was Mrs Caroline Badyal. She arrived on a secondment from the Dormston School in Sedgley in September 2002, and received the job on a permanent basis in April 2003.
Notable Alumni
- John Bainbridge, author and countryside campaigner
- John Constandinou, athlete
- Cat Deeley, television personality
- Matt Goodwin, managing director of architecture initiative
- James Holmes, actor
- Matthew Marsden, actor
- Pardeep Panesar and construction tycoon
- Arun Singh, Professional Trader, Investor and Mentor
- Dean Smith, footballer
- Gillian Wearing, artist
- Steve Webb, Liberal Democrat MP
- Rob Young, author
- Tim Jones, Olympian
Q3 Academy (2008-)
It was planned to build a new academy on the Dartmouth High School site. The proposal was for an 11-18 school of 1,100 pupils and an annual admissions number of 180 pupils into Year7. The academy to specialise in design and enterprise with a strong focus on the arts and creative industries
Dartmouth became Q3 Academy in September 2008, although it initially existed in the old Dartmouth buildings. In August 2008, the project to rebuild the school began. It took 21 months to build, and was ready for students in April 2010, straight after the Easter Holiday. The old building was demolished and the final landscaping phase took place over the summer of 2010, ready for students to start in September of that year.
The motto for the Q3 Academy schools is "To seek for that which is good, that which is right, and that which is true"". The "Q" in Q3 stands for the Latin word "quaerere" , meaning "to seek after" or "to search for".
Head Teachers
- Mrs Caroline Badya was the designate head of the Q3 academy continuing from Dartmouth School
- Mark Arnull (Easter 2016-September 2024)
- Mr Chris Bury (2024 - joined the Academy from The Ladder School within The Mercian Trust)
Latest information can be found on the official site at www.q3academy.org.uk