DOVER GRAMMAR SCHOOL FOR BOYS

O  E

Outcomes are proportional to expectations

DGSB was founded in 1905, and has occupied its present site since 1931. The School is situated on a hill overlooking the Castle and the Harbour, As a function of our foundation status within the Local Education Authority, our Governing Body autonomously owns its land and buildings, employs its staff, and determines its admissions policy.

We are a four-form-entry school, admitting 120 boys annually into Year 7. Our four Houses – Castle, Channel, Port and Priory – currently determine teaching groups in Key Stage 3as well as forming the backbone of our pastoral structure, which is ‘vertical’ within each Key Stage and still organised in House Tutor Groups.

The majority of our students remain with us after GCSE as Sixth Formers, at which stage we also welcome external applications from young people of both sexes. The number of girls on roll is steadily increasing.

Our ambition for our young people is nothing less than a full realisation of their potential, it being always remembered that the word realisation has two distinct senses – “awareness” and “fulfilment” – and that the first is a pre-condition of the second. From an academic point of view, we seek to reveal the joy of knowledge and understanding as ends in themselves, as well as their value in opening up practical horizons; to train our students in the importance of self-discipline, personal organisation, and rigorous thought; and to prepare them properly for the demands of Higher Education – “getting them ready”, rather than merely “getting them in”. In parallel with this, we aim to promote their development in all the other ways which define true maturity, making available a wide range of sporting and cultural activities, taking advantage whenever possible of extramural opportunities both within and outside the curriculum, and providing openings for real social responsibility and leadership through the Prefect system, the Student Council and the Sixth Form Students’ Association, and in many other ways.

DGSB is a school committed to mutual respect and celebration of difference, and dependent for its effective functioning upon close and willing collaboration between all those – students, staff, parents and carers – with a stake in the common goals described above. Every individual has a unique contribution to bring to the cause, and we welcome the arrival of each new colleague as a strengthening of our community.

February 2014