De Aston School


De Aston School is a mixed secondary school with academy status in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, England. It also has a sixth form and boarding house. The school has a broad Christian ethos but accommodates those of other faiths or no faith.

Admissions

The school has approximately 904 pupils. The school used to provide boarding accommodation for around 80 pupils, many of whom come from abroad. De Aston is a specialist school in mathematics and computing.

History

Grammar school

De Aston School was founded in 1863 as a small grammar school, as part of a legal settlement following a court case involving funds from the medieval charity of Thomas De Aston, a 13th-century monk. Until recently, the school's Foundation Governors also owned the chapel at the site of the charity's Almshouses at Spital on the Street, a few miles away to the west.
The school's headmaster originally had his own house on the school site. The Victorian Gothic red brick house was built in 1863 and was designated as a Grade II listed building by English Heritage in 1984.The original buildings was designed by the Louth Architect James Fowler and further additions were added in 1904-6 by the Lincoln architect Herbert Dunn. As a grammar school it was administered by the Lindsey Education Committee, based in Lincoln, and became co-educational in 1971.

Comprehensive

It became a comprehensive in 1974, amalgamating with Market Rasen Secondary Modern School on Kilnwell Road. At the same time, new buildings were opened.

Academy

The school converted to academy status in March 2011.

Headmasters

In March 2001, at the Secondary Heads Association's conference in Newport, Ellenor Beighton, head teacher, spoke out against the current funding system for schools. Then in July 2001 Former Headmaster Anthony Neal disagreed with School Standards Minister Stephen Timms over the benefits of specialist schools saying that they create a two-tier system. Homework was being publicly discussed in December 2001 in the wake of Cherie Blair's request to the Ministry of Defence for information to help with her son's homework. Neal commented that homework was essential and central to the fact that standards were rising.
Police apologised to the school, in November 2006, after a computer error wrongly put it at the top of a national table for the number of police call-outs.

Notable former pupils