The Brooksbank School

The Brooksbank School is a secondary school with academy status in Elland near Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It is a sports college and is the second largest school in Calderdale, behind Trinity Academy. The school currently has over 1700 pupils with over 250 members of staff.

History

The school was first founded in Elland almost 300 years ago by Joseph Brooksbank. He grew up in Elland but left the town at the age of sixteen to become a haberdasher’s apprentice in London. He was described as a prosperous and a promising young man, whose enterprising spirit was rewarded with the title of Citizen of the City of London in 1681. His social standing was reflected by his marriage in 1679 to ‘Mary, daughter of Richard Stamp, merchant, of The City and of Reading, and niece of the Thomas Stamp who became Lord Mayor in 1691’. A final accolade was bestowed upon him when he was appointed a Master of the Haberdashers Company in 1718. However, Joseph never forgot his local roots and, in 1712, he founded a new school in his home town.

The original Brooksbank School was opened to help just forty poor children of Elland learn to read, for free, and for a charge of one penny a week they could also learn to write. Joseph’s son, Stamp, who was born in 1694, was even more successful than his father had been. He became a director of the Bank of England by the age of thirty-six and was appointed governor of the bank from 1741-1743. Stamp, who was also an MP, had gained millionaire status at the time of his death in 1756. In the same year, Stamp’s son, also called Joseph, increased the Brooksbank connection with Elland by generously providing the school with a second endowment.

Little is known about what happened over the following hundred years as records are scarce. The school moved to premises in Westgate. Charity Commissioners, who inspected the school in 1829, reported that forty children were attending and that the schoolmaster was being paid £70 a year to teach them.

As the years passed, the desire grew for improved educational opportunities and it was decided that Elland needed a brand new building in a better location. The elevated green fields along Victoria Road were chosen and building work began. An impressive new school, whose classical facade remains intact today, opened to approximately one hundred pupils on 12 September 1911; it was named Elland and District Secondary School. In 1933, the school’s reputation for academic achievement was increasing and it was renamed Elland Grammar School to reflect this. As a result the learning flourished and the number of pupils on roll began to rise.

Twenty five years later, as the nation embraced the idea of comprehensive education, the school shed its grammar school identity and embraced the ethos of equal educational opportunities for all students regardless of ability. A new name was needed to reflect the new ethos and the school looked to its founding forefathers and chose to revive the name of Brooksbank.

A series of major extensions have been added since then and The Brooksbank School is now home to a learning community of around 1,700 young people.

Campus

The school is located to the west side of Elland, approximately a 5 minute walk from the town centre, and 0.5 miles (0.8 km) south of the accessible M62 motorway. It has bus links to locations including Halifax, Huddersfield, brighouse and Wakefield.

Facilities include a sports hall, four tennis courts, three drama studios, a playing field and a gym. Sports played include badminton, table tennis and rugby.

Extracurricular activities

Extracurricular activities include football and rugby. A Science Club is also available. Each year the school performs in a drama production and a gym and dance evening.

References

• The Brooksbank School