Repton School - History

History

On 6 June 1557 Sir John Port of Etwall died without a male heir and his bequests included funds to provide almshouses at Etwall but also the means to found a "Grammar School in Etwalle or Reptone", where the scholars every day were to pray for the souls of his parents and other relatives.

In 1559 the executors of Sir John Port's will purchased from the Thacker family, for £37.10s (£37.50), the land which had once housed a twelfth-century Augustinian Priory, and the accompanying buildings which had survived Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries and subsequent upheavals, namely, the Guest Chamber and Prior's Lodging (which as the Old Priory currently houses the School Library and Common Room), Overton's Tower (now part of School House), the Tithe Barn, and the Arch, which is all that now remains of the priory's original gatehouse and which helped inspire the School's motto: porta vacat culpa.

A preparatory school was founded during the Second World War to ensure that Repton School had enough pupils, and after the war the prep school moved to nearby Foremarke Hall. In 1970, the school led a soon to be growing trend in public schools and started accepting girls in the sixth form (the last two years). Carole Blackshaw, a local girl, and Sally Keenan became the first female Repton sixth formers in 1970 after Sally, entirely on her own initiative, asked headmaster John Gammell if she could attend Repton. He agreed and then The chairman of governors also agreed, as long as she found a like-minded friend to "keep her company". Carole went on to become Lady Mayoress of London in 2002/03. Repton later became fully coeducational around 1990.

Repton uses an unusual nomenclature for its year groups: Year 9, 10 and 11 are known as "B", "A" and "O" blocks respectively.