Queen Elizabeth School, Kirkby Lonsdale

Queen Elizabeth School, also abbreviated to as QES, is a coeducational, comprehensive secondary school and sixth form with academy status. It is located in Kirkby Lonsdale, in the English county of Cumbria. [1] It currently has a population of 1,170 students aged 11 to 18 in the main school, and 186 in the sixth form. [2][3]

In 1591, Queen Elizabeth School (QES) was granted a royal charter and founded as a free grammar school. QES moved from its original Mill Brow location in 1840 to the newly constructed Springfield House on Biggins Lane, Kirkby Lonsdale. Girls were first admitted in 1905, and by 1930 there were 88 day pupils and 54 boarders, approximately half and half boys and girls. QES became a non-selective comprehensive school in 1978 and continued to take in boarders until the late 1980s.

In 1997 Springfield House, the boys' boarding accommodation, was redeveloped as a dedicated Sixth Form area. On 1 December 2010 QES became the first school in the county to convert to academy status. However, the school continues to coordinate with Cumbria County Council for admissions. QES offers GCSEs and BTECs as programmes of study for pupils, while students in the sixth form have the option to study from a range of A-levels and further BTECs.

In September 2017, a sister school, Queen Elizabeth Studio School, abbreviated to QEStudio, was built, and started accepting students. Despite being just across Biggins Lane from each other, they are, in official terms, together a family of schools with a parent body called Lunesdale Learning Trust.[4][5] QEStudio offers ‘technical’ qualifications, with professional partners. Students decide to join either QES or QEStudio for Year 10, aged 14, for their GCSEs, to the end of Sixth Form, aged 18, for their A-levels, and can "pick and mix technical and academic qualifications to create a personal Learning Package".[6] QEStudio currently has a student population of around 343 students, and its sixth form has 105 students. [7]