Regent College, Leicester

For the Canadian graduate school, see Regent College.

Regent College is one of three sixth form colleges located in Leicester, England.

History

It was previously known as Wyggeston Girls' Grammar School. This school was originally situated in Humberstone Gate from 1878 as Wyggeston Hospital Girls' School with only 150 pupils. At the former girls' school, Clara Collet taught from 1878 until 1885. By the time the school moved to new buildings on Regent Road in 1928, there were about 700 pupils. The college was established in 1976, when Leicester adopted the comprehensive education system, and is close to the city centre. It is in the same area as De Montfort Hall, the University of Leicester campus and fellow college Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College. The college was previously known as Wyggeston Collegiate until 1996 when it received its current name.

The name Wyggeston Collegiate Sixth Form College came about as a result of the Leicester Education Committee's decision in the 1970s to reduce the intake of girls at age 11 in both the Wyggeston Girls' Grammar School and the Collegiate Girls' School (also a grammar school), until, in 1981 with just the sixth forms (16 to 19 years of age) left, they combined them at the Regent Road site of the Wyggeston Girls', to form the Sixth Form College. Boys were also admitted at this time, for the first time. This was eventually considered to be an unwieldy name and by 1995 was renamed Regent College.

History of the Collegiate Girls' School, Leicester

The school began as a small young ladies' boarding school in the church manse in Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire, run at least during the late 1840s by Mrs Betsey Islip, whose husband was the Minister of the Independent Church in the parish. The college was part of the redevelopment of this part of Leicester which included De Montfort Hall and the city fire station.

It was there for nearly two decades, until in 1866, following the death of her husband, Mrs Islip took the vacant building named Collegiate House, eight miles away in College Street, Leicester. This was the former headmaster's house left vacant by the closure of the Boys' Collegiate School, Leicester's first Anglican Proprietary School, in the summer of 1866.

The Collegiate House School for Girls opened in February 1867 and by 1871, Mrs Islip has managed to purchase the south single-storey wing of the former boys' school, later known as The Rowans. The rest of the former Collegiate Boys' School was purchased by the congregation of the Oxford Street Congregational Church, Leicester and became known as the Wycliffe Chapel. A wall near the vestry separated them from the school. The school took children from at least the age of five in a kindergarten taught by Froebel-trained teachers and just girls after the age of seven.

By 1922 Leicester Education Committee had taken over control of the Collegiate School for Girls (as it was then known), which was from that time run as a very successful maintained grammar school. By 1954 Leicester Corporation had purchased all the buildings and the Congregational church moved to Evington, Leicestershire. After 88 years the whole site reverted to the use for the secondary education of girls. By 1981 as described above, the remaining Sixth Form was combined with that from the Wyggeston Girls' Grammar School.

Curriculum

Courses including AS, A2 and GCSEs including level 1 and level are all provided at the college. These include AiDA, Drama and Theatre Studies, Dutch, Film Studies, and World Development.

Situated close to the centre of Leicester, Regent College is a community sixth form college. Regent College provide daytime and evening courses, and courses for business. It also works with a growing range of partner organisations to provide learning opportunities for all sections of the communities they serve.

The college currently has at least 70 enrichment courses. Students can take on these to help them with other courses they are doing they can be for up to 1–2 hours per week. Enrichment courses include: working out at the gym to British Sign Language.

Facilities

One of Regent College's aims is to encourage students to achieve their personal best. They also encourage students to take part in volunteering. Students can either volunteer with the college or they can be passed on to other volunteering organisations.

The college's student services offer support. They advise on a range of issues, from progression to employment or university, to counselling and finances. Every student is issued with a personal supervisor at the beginning of their time there, who is there to support and monitor each student.

Alumni

Wyggeston Girls' Grammar School

• Biddy Baxter MBE, creator of Blue Peter (1944–51)
• Fiona Chesterton, Editor from 1987-89 of London Plus, and from 1989-91 of Newsroom South East, Controller of Adult Learning from 1998-2003 at the BBC (1963–70)
• Joanna David (née Hacking), actress, married since 2004 to Edward Fox (actor), and mother of Emilia Fox and Freddie Fox (1958–59)
• Enid Essame, Headmistress from 1943-71 of Queenswood School (1918-23)
• Elaine Feinstein (née Cooklin), poet and novelist (1942-9)
• Ruth Henig, Baroness Henig (née Munzer), Chairman from 2007-13 of the Security Industry Authority (1955–62)
• Dinah Nichols CB, Chair since 2012 of Keep Britain Tidy
• Prof Bhupinder Sandhu OBE FRCP FRCPCH, consultant paediatric gastroenterologist, Head of the Gastroenterology Unit since 1988 at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children (-1969)
• Mary Scholes (Haggart) OBE, Chief Area Nursing Officer from 1973-83 of Tayside Health Board, Chairman from 1980-84 of the Scottish National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (since 2002, part of the Nursing and Midwifery Council) (1935–40)
• Mary Stott (née Waddington), Guardian journalist and feminist (1918–25)
• Linda Stratmann, true crime writer (1959–1964)

Former teachers

• Clara Collet, acquaintance of Karl Marx and social reformer for women's working conditions (taught from 1878–85)

External links

• College website
• Former school
• EduBase