Paisley Grammar School is a secondary school in Paisley, the largest town in Renfrewshire, Scotland. The school was founded in 1576 by royal charter of King James VI and is situated on Glasgow Road.
The present school building (which was called the 'Paisley Grammar School and William B. Barbour Academy' due to a bequest by the former Member of Parliament for Paisley, William B. Barbour, and until recently was the school's proper title) was opened in 1898 by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, then Secretary of State for Scotland.
The school was fee paying until the mid-1960s and in 1986, when threatened with imminent closure by Strathclyde Regional Council, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher intervened personally to ensure the survival of the school. The law was changed so that local councils could no longer close schools which were more than 80% full without approval by the Secretary of State for Scotland.
The current Head Teacher is Caroline Amos.
Read more about Paisley Grammar School: Notable Former Pupils, Old Grammarians, External Links
Famous quotes containing the words grammar school, grammar and/or school:
“I went to a very militantly Republican grammar school and, under its influence, began to revolt against the Establishment, on the simple rule of thumb, highly satisfying to a ten-year-old, that Irish equals good, English equals bad.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“Grammar is a tricky, inconsistent thing. Being the backbone of speech and writing, it should, we think, be eminently logical, make perfect sense, like the human skeleton. But, of course, the skeleton is arbitrary, too. Why twelve pairs of ribs rather than eleven or thirteen? Why thirty-two teeth? It has something to do with evolution and functionalism—but only sometimes, not always. So there are aspects of grammar that make good, logical sense, and others that do not.”
—John Simon (b. 1925)
“Their school a crowd, his master solitude;
Through Jonathan Swift’s dark grove he passed, and there
Plucked bitter wisdom that enriched his blood.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)