History
HURWORTH HOUSE SCHOOL was founded in 1946 as a private preparatory boarding school for boys. Our founder, Mrs D L Carew-Shaw, after failing to find a school that was right for her young son, established her own in the fine Georgian building that you see today.
For the first fifty years of its history, Hurworth House established and maintained an enviable reputation for preparing boys for Common Entrance into public school.
In 1994, however, the Governing Board took the decision to extend the age range of the school to 18 and to offer the full range of GCSE and, with our sister school Polam Hall, AS and A- Level subjects to the boys in its care. This decision arose essentially at the instigation of many parents who wanted the outstanding education that their sons had thus far enjoyed up to the age of thirteen to continue for the full duration of their school careers.
The first group of students to sit the GCSE examination more than justified that decision, and Hurworth House headed the local schools' examination league tables in that year.
Much has changed since Hurworth House was founded; the school is now run as an Independent Charitable Trust with its own board of Governors and is a member of the Independent Schools' Association. There have, of course, also been many changes to the depth and range of the curriculum over the years, and a purpose-built classroom block was recently constructed to accommodate these developments. Indeed, many people who are familiar with the historic frontage of the school are often pleasantly surprised at the scale and modernity of what lies behind it.
However, much of the ethos of that early school remains. Hurworth House was designed as a small school that was able to cater for the individual needs, both social and academic, of all its pupils - and so it remains to this day. The early principles that our founder laid down of high-expectations, high-quality teaching and a caring and happy atmosphere are still to be found here. The twin facets of traditional values and a modern, relevant and practical outlook are not just reflected in the architecture, they are at the very root of what makes Hurworth House the unique school that it is. |