King Edward's School, Birmingham

King Edward's School (KES) is an independent secondary school in Birmingham, England, founded by King Edward VI in 1552. It is part of the Foundation of Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham and one of the most academically successful schools in the country. It was ranked 10th for A-Level results [1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4170185.stm) and 40th for GCSE results [2] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4170183.stm) out of all schools in England in 2004. The school has been located in Edgbaston since 1940, but this was not the original site; King Edward's used to be situated on New Street in Birmingham city centre.

It is a boys' school, although it occupies the same site as, and is twinned with, King Edward's High School for Girls (KEHS), also one of the most academically successful schools in the UK. Whilst lessons and sports are taught separately, dramatic arts and music are often shared.

School Structure

Unlike most secondary schools, King Edward's does not use the traditional year group names, e.g. Year 11, Year 12, etc.

The table below attempts to clarify the names used for the different classes:

The House System

King Edward's has a house system. The 8 Houses are all named after former Chief Masters or Deputy Chief Masters and compete against one another every year to win the Cock House Trophy.

There are many events that boys take part in and get points for. These points are totalled up at the end of the year, and the House with the most points is declared the Cock House Champion.

Each house has a distinctive set of 'colours' which are awarded to students for merit and commitment in representing the house in house matches. This allows the student to wear the house tie. The Houses are:

Music School

There is a separate building on site housing the Music Department with facilities including a recital/rehearsal auditorium and a computer lab equipped with keyboard input. In addition, the school supports two orchestras (in association with King Edward's High School for Girls), conducted by Peter Bridle, MBE. There are also two wind/brass ensembles also in association with KEHS, and the senior members of both schools can join the Choral Society, a choir of 80-100 people which has sung such works as Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, and performed Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms in March this year. KES also has its own Choir, which sings at the Founder's Day prizegiving, the Christmas Carol service held in St. Philip's Cathedral in the centre of Birmingham, and at the Christmas and Summer concerts.

The school holds four concerts every year. There are the popular Christmas Concerts, held over two days in mid-December at the Adrian Boult Hall, the Choral and Orchestral concert in mid-March (which features a large choral work by the Choral Society in the first half, and the Symphony Orchestra in the second half, with a solo provided by one of the schools' top musicians) which is also at the Adrian Boult Hall, and the Summer Concert in late April/early May, featuring all the ensembles from the school come together for the Summer Concert held at Symphony Hall, Birmingham.

Drama

King Edward's Drama Department continues to receive enormous support from pupils. The undoubted highlight is the annual senior production, which combines the prolific acting talents of some of the older boys (and girls of KEHS) with the aforementioned Music Department's finest performers, to put on a spectacular show. As well as the senior production, the Drama Department puts on another play for the junior years of KES and KEHS, as well as numerous other events, including the departing Sixth Formers' "Syndicate Play".

School Songs

There are two school songs:

• The Quatercentenary Song
  • Written by Roger Dunt (1900-63), composed by Willis Grant (1907-81).
  • Sung at Founder's Day, the annual commemoration in October of King Edward's birthday, and also at various other award ceremonies.

• King Edward's School Song
  • Written by Alfred Hayes OE (1857-1936), composed by A. Somervell.
  • A rousing, if somewhat clichéd, song, sung mainly at the end of term, usually in a disrespectful manner by high-spirited boys.

Sport

King Edward's is surprisingly good at sport, especially considering it does not give sporting scholarships as some other nearby schools, such as Bromsgrove School. The annual rugby match against their main rivals Bromsgrove is the longest running annual rugby game in the world and the highlight of the rugby season. In 2002 the school won the English schools U19 water polo competition.

Living History

One of the school's more unique societies is the Living History Group, which currently has around 40 members from both KES and the neighbouring King Edward's High School for Girls. Run by the school's Head of History, Jonathan Davies, the society adds a "hands-on" approach to lessons with demonstrations of both civilian and military aspects of the late Mediaeval and Tudor periods of English history - around the period in which the school itself is founded. The Group also travels to historical sites to give demonstrations to the public. Recent events have included Warwick Castle, Tilbury Fort, the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, Harvington Hall and the Battle of Berkeley Castle; the Group will be at the Mary Rose museum in Portsmouth for the International Festival of the Sea in July 2005.

Old Edwardians

• Richard Ewen Borcherds (Mathematician; winner of the 1998 Fields Medal for the proof of the Monstrous moonshine conjecture)
• Sir Edward Burne-Jones
• Henry Cary (Translator of Dante)
• Jonathan Coe (novelist - one of his best known works, The Rotters Club, based on his time at KES, has recently been televised on the BBC)
• Tony Miles
• David Munrow (early music pioneer)
• Bill Oddie
• Enoch Powell
• J. R. R. Tolkien
• Kenneth Tynan
• Sir John Vane (1982 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine)
• Maurice Wilkins
• David Willetts (MP)

External Links

• King Edward's School, Birmingham (http://www.kes.bham.sch.uk/)
• King Edward's School, Modern Languages Department (http://www.keslanguages.com/)