The school has a very proud history and can trace its roots back to 1904 and the establishment of the Pupil Teacher Centre in Abbey Road. Even in those days overcrowding was a problem and Torquay Secondary School, as it had become, was opened in Barton Road in April 1915 with 170 boys. We remained at Barton Road until 1983 when we moved to our purpose built site here at Shiphay. At that time we had 750 boys in four Houses; now we have 1120 boys and girls in six houses (girls studying the International Baccalaureate are part of our sixth form) so extensive building programmes have taken place in the last 30 years or so to keep our facilities up-to-date and to provide a suitable environment for learning of the highest quality to take place.

The school now stands as one of the top 20 boys’ schools in the country and is forever moving forward in the drive to providing an education, both academic and cultural, to rival that found anywhere in the country. We became a Grant Maintained School in 1993, were given Specialist Status in 1996, Foundation Status in 1997, Leading Edge in 2000, Beacon Status, High Performing Specialist Status in 2006, became part of the South West Academic Trust in 2008, granted Academy Status in 2010 and we became a Multi-Academy Trust in 2012 when we sponsored Torquay Academy in their bid for Academy status. Along the way we have undergone three OFSTED inspections and been found to be outstanding each time.

We are rightly proud of our school and hope the website gives a flavour of just why we are so successful in providing an excellent well-rounded education to our students.