An honour to serve the community
Daisy Robinson, former sixth-form student, explores the history of Poole’s Parkstone Grammar School
Published in November ’18
A photograph of an early Parkstone School play
Ask headteacher Tracy Harris what she thinks makes Parkstone Grammar School (PGS) a special place, and she will reply, ‘People’. Tracy, who has been head for five years, explains that ‘The students, the staff, the parents, make this a very special and unique place. When I describe Parkstone to new students I talk about it as a family, and I very much mean that. Sometimes we have our disagreements, but we all want the best for each other, we all pull in the same direction.
‘The students at Parkstone are an absolute joy to work with. As a teacher, they challenge you, because the students are driven and want to learn. They’re genuinely interested in the subject you’re teaching, and it is lovely as a teacher to share your enthusiasm. As a head, I have felt that it has been, and continues to be, an honour to serve the community here, and to provide the girls and community with the best possible environment
for learning.’
The Parkstone Grammar School founded in 1905 by William Ernest Brennand was significantly different from today’s, not least in the fact that it taught both girls and boys. Within a short walk of Parkstone Station, in its first year the beautiful building housed only 57 pupils, from the age of eight and upwards, overseen by headmaster Rev. E Stanley Moss. Traditional subjects of the time were complemented by shorthand and book-keeping along with religious instruction under the Church of England; there were no modern languages or the scientific lessons offered today.
In the early 1930s, the school was in essence a business and the governors appealed to the public to stabilise the school’s mortgage debts. Clearly, though, that didn’t work as in April 1934 its ownership was transferred to the education authority within Dorset County Council, which re-organised the school along with Poole Grammar School, resulting in Parkstone becoming an all-girls environment.
An intriguing work of art entitled ‘Losing reality’ by then Parkstone student Katie Cray
Although few changes over the years have been as seismic as that one, things have nonetheless continued to evolve. Jacquie Pearcy has not only worked as Officer Manager for PGS for the last 24 years but remembers her days as a pupil back in the 1970s, when the teaching of the past clearly contrasted with the present: ‘When I was here as a student, most of the teaching was done by fear. The teaching was very strict, and if you got something wrong, the discipline was normally humiliation, to be shouted at in front of the rest of the class. Teaching is so not like that nowadays. I didn’t feel as a student that the teachers cared for me as a person, whereas when I see what teachers and support staff now do with the students, I think they genuinely want them to do well in all aspects of their lives.’
While some things have changed, others are more deeply rooted in the school’s past and present: ‘School uniform!’ laughs Jacquie. ‘It’s practically the same as it was. But when I was here, we had to wear berets to and from school and if you were caught not wearing one, you’d get a detention. If you got off the bus and took your beret off then, if a teacher saw you, they’d report you the next day. The uniform regulations were extremely strict: we had to have socks that went up to our knees and a skirt that came down to just above the knee. We’d have to kneel on the stage and if your skirt didn’t come down properly, then you’d be in trouble. But I did love my school time here. It’s got a unique smell and it still smells the same – how weird is that? I think it’s just a feeling, and I can’t even explain what that feeling is. It’s a warm feeling, it was here when I was here as a student and it’s still here now.’
A picnic at a Parkstone School sportsday
The 1980s and 1990s were more years of change for the school. Many alterations made then are still in place at PGS today, like joint-school musicals (with Poole Grammar School) and charity weeks. The Senior Citizens’ Christmas Party was founded by sixth-formers to celebrate with those older residents in the community who were lonely at Christmas. The charity weeks, fundraising for organisations like Help the Aged (now Age UK) and Care and Relief for the Young (CRY), became regular events, cementing the school’s close connection with the wider community.
Parkstone’s logo also underwent change. Designed by two sixth-formers in 1989, the friendlier, jumping dolphin was chosen to replace the rather stylised Poole Borough dolphin logo of the time, the dynamic dolphin aiming to reflect the positive outlook from the school, and its leap out of the water to represent the school’s progress and forward-thinking enthusiasm.
This outward approach to the school’s future is one of the reasons why Helen Whelan chooses to stay at the school, having joined as a newly qualified teacher twenty years ago. ‘I’ve just loved it,’ she says, ‘ I really have. It’s the sort of school I would have liked to have gone to and I find working with students here has remained a positive challenge, in the best possible way.’
There are other challenges, though, that Helen is less keen on: ‘The pressure on young people has changed, external pressures have changed. There seems to be, in some ways, less choice. Because of tuition fees, people have to look to their long-term plans quickly, so the decisions you’re making now are based where you want to be when you’re 25. When I first started, when we didn’t have tuition fees, you would be able to say, “You know, I think I’m going to have a go at a fashion degree” or “I think I’ll have a go at doing languages.” People did all sorts of extraordinary things, because they could almost play with that notion and experiment more. You could go and do a degree, and as long as you had a good degree, that’s what counted.
‘We can’t,’ goes on Helen, ‘change some of the forces outside our control. But we can help deal with that, or help you to prioritise a bit more. As teachers sometimes we can get locked in our own subject, and sometimes students think just about the qualification but not the learning. We must try to keep focused on the bigger picture and the whole student.’
The Great Hall at Parkstone School when it taught boys
Part of that bigger picture was re-made in 1991, when parents and governors overwhelmingly voted in favour of opting out of education authority control, enabling a larger school population and the receipt of funds directly from government. Parkstone also became the first eco school in Dorset in 1996, then gained status as a science specialist school in 2003 and held the first Dorset girls’ rugby festival in 2004. Parkstone’s academic success has flourished and the school often reaches the top fifty in terms of A Level and GCSE results in national league tables.
Ultimately, Parkstone Grammar School continues to cultivate generations of successful young women in its warm and vibrant community. As head Tracy Harris explains: ‘There are lots of challenges, particularly in terms of finance these days, and as a school over the last five years, we’ve lost 12% of our budget, which makes providing opportunities for our students even more challenging. But Parkstone remains a unique and special place to work. When Ofsted visited us earlier on this year and judged us to be Outstanding, they talked about the very special students and staff we have, and about the relationships that generate such good learning experiences.’
