Top Fifty CP Schools in the UK

The Top Fifty

For an explanation of this table please read our article Corporal punishment: the Friends Reunited evidence.

And the winner is ...... Rutlish School

Please remember that corporal punishment was abolished for all UK state schools in 1987 (before the above group of happy Rutlish boys were even born). Nothing here should be taken in any way to imply anything at all about these schools in the modern era.

Rank	Name of school	Local education authority (after 1965)	Type (at the time) **	Mentions of corporal punishment on F.R.
1.	Rutlish (formerly Rutlish Grammar), Merton Park	Merton, London	Boys grammar till 1969 then boys compr.	34
2.	Catford Boys, Lewisham	Inner London	Boys compr. former sec. mod.	28
3.	London Nautical School, Blackfriars	Inner London	Boys compr.	27
4.	Bexleyheath	Bexley, London	Boys sec. mod. till 1968 then mixed sec. mod.	25
5=	Gunnersbury Grammar, Brentford	Hounslow, London	RC VA boys compr. former grammar	24
5=	Upton House, Hackney	Inner London	Boys compr. former sec. mod.	24
7=	Archbishop Tenisons, Kennington Oval	Inner London	CE VA boys grammar	23
7=	Glastonbury High, Morden	Sutton, London	Boys sec. mod.	23
9=	Ravensbourne Boys (formerly Bromley County Grammar)	Bromley, London	Boys compr. former grammar	22
9=	Stretford Boys Grammar	Lancashire till 1974 then Trafford, Gtr Manchester	Boys grammar	22
11=	Abbotsfield, Hillingdon	Hillingdon, London	Boys sec. mod.	21
11=	Bloomfield Secondary, Woolwich	Greenwich, London	Boys sec. mod.?	21
11=	Kennington Boys, Brixton	Inner London	Boys compr. former sec. mod.	21
11=	Peckham Manor, Southwark	Inner London	Boys compr.	21
15=	Hawes Down, West Wickham	Bromley, London	Boys sec. mod.	20
15=	Highbury Grove (formerly Highbury County Grammar), Islington	Inner London	Boys grammar till 1967 then boys compr.	20
15=	Sharmans Cross, Solihull	Solihull, West Midlands	Separate boys' and girls' sec. mods. till 1974 then mixed compr.	20
19=	Kentwood Boys, Penge	Bromley, London	Boys sec. mod.?	19
19=	Whitefield, Cricklewood	Barnet, London	Mixed compr.	19
19=	Abbeylands, Addlestone	Surrey	Mixed compr.	18
22=	Beal Boys Grammar (Beal High School from 1976), Woodford Green	Redbridge, London	Boys grammar till 1976 then mixed compr.	18
22=	Clapham College School for Boys, Lambeth	Inner London	RC boys grammar till 1977 then RC boys compr.	18
22=	Dunsmore Boys, Rugby	Warwickshire	Boys grammar	18
22=	Fairchildes High, New Addington	Croydon, London	Boys till 1969 then mixed compr.	18
22=	Hillcroft, Tooting	Inner London	Boys compr.	18
22=	Lyndon High, Solihull	Solihull, West Midlands	Separate boys' and girls' sec. mods. till 1974 then mixed compr.	18
22=	Portsmouth Technical High, Hilsea	Portsmouth till 1974 then Hampshire	Boys tech.	18
29=	Ashmead Boys, Reading	Reading till 1974 then Berkshire	Boys sec. mod.	17
29=	Cardinal Langley, Middleton	Rochdale, Gtr Manchester	RC VA boys grammar	17
29=	Chace Boys	Enfield, London	Boys compr.	17
29=	Ernest Bevin, Tooting	Inner London	Boys compr.	17
29=	Lucton Boys, Loughton	Essex	Boys sec. mod.	17
34=	Abbotsford, Ashford, Middx	Surrey	Mixed sec. mod.	16
34=	Alfred Sutton Boys, Reading	Reading till 1974 then Berkshire	Boys sec. mod.	16
34=	Coopers Company School, Mile End	Inner London	VA boys compr.	16
34=	St Marks Secondary, Fulham	Inner London	Mixed compr.?	16
34=	Spencer Park, Wandsworth	Inner London	Boys compr. former sec. mod.?	16
34=	William Penn, Peckham	Inner London	Boys sec. mod. until 1958 then boys' compr.	16
40=	Abbeydale Grange, Sheffield	Sheffield	Mixed compr.	15
40=	Belmont	Harrow, London	Mixed sec. mod.	15
40=	Beverley Boys	Kingston, London	Boys sec. mod.	15
40=	Rokeby Boys, Stratford	Newham, London	Boys compr.	15
40=	St Audrey's, Hatfield	Hertfordshire	Mixed compr.	15
46=	Bancroft's, Woodford Green, N.E. London	[private school]	DG CE boys (partly boarding) till 1977 then mixed independent	14
46=	Belfairs High, Leigh-on-Sea	Southend till 1974 then Essex	Mixed sec. mod.	14
46=	George Mitchell, Leyton	Waltham Forest, London	Mixed compr.	14
46=	Haverstock, Chalk Farm	Inner London	Mixed compr.	14
46=	Littlemoss Boys High, Droylsden	Lancashire till 1974 then Tameside, Gtr Manchester	Boys compr. former sec. mod.	14
46=	Westcliff Boys High, Westcliff-on-Sea	Southend till 1974 then Essex	Boys grammar	14

KEY:

** This column, subject in some cases to further research, gives a very rough impression of what sort of school this was between the 1950s and the mid-1980s. Successive local government reorganisations, boundary changes, school renamings /mergers /closures, and changes in local political control or national education policy, combined with the lack of any centrally agreed terminology covering all schools, mean that the situation in detail is often more complicated than this. None of this refers to the present day; indeed, several of these schools no longer exist.

CE = Church of England

compr. = comprehensive (i.e. non-selective intake), may be mixed or single-sex

DG = Direct Grant = mostly selective intake, some publicly-funded pupils but independent of local education authority control

grammar = selective intake, for the more academic, usually but not always single-sex (NB: some schools still called "grammar school" are no longer grammar schools, and not all grammar schools are called "grammar school")

RC = Roman Catholic

sec. mod. = secondary modern (selective intake, for the less academic), may be mixed or single-sex

tech. = technical school. For our purposes here, probably not materially different from a secondary modern school.

VA = Voluntary Aided status. These (mostly church-run) schools are largely or wholly funded by the local education authority (and therefore count as fully part of the state system), but are not directly controlled by it and not necessarily subject to all its rules. For instance, in Inner London, some VA schools continued to use corporal punishment after the ILEA abolished it in its directly-run schools in 1981. VA schools are not to be confused with voluntary controlled (VC) schools, also mostly run by one of the churches but more directly controlled by the LEA and, for our purposes here, not materially any different from ordinary mainstream state schools. For this reason, VC schools have not been separately identified in the above table.

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