Carre's Grammar School is a selective secondary school for boys in Sleaford, a market town in Lincolnshire, England.
Founded on 1 September 1604 by an indenture of Robert Carre, the school was funded by rents from farmland and run by a group of trustees. The indenture restricted the endowment to £20 without accounting for inflation, causing the school to decline during the 18th century and effectively close in 1816. Revived by a decree from the Court of Chancery in 1830 new buildings were constructed at its present site and the school reopened in 1835. Faced with declining rolls and competition from cheaper commercial schools, Carre's eventually added technical and artistic instruction to its Classical curriculum by affiliating with Kesteven County Council in 1895. Following the Education Act 1944, school fees were abolished and Carre's became Voluntary Aided. New buildings were completed in 1966 to house the rising number of pupils. After plans for comprehensive education in Sleaford came to nothing in the 1970s and 1980s, Carre's converted to grant-maintained status in 1990. Foundation status followed and the school became an Academy in 2011. The Robert Carre Trust, a multi-Academy trust with Kesteven and Sleaford High School was formed in 2015 to manage the school; it ceased to exist in 2025, when it merged into the Community Inclusive Trust.
Admission to Carre's is through the eleven-plus examination and entry is limited to boys in the lower school, although the Sixth form is co-educational. The total number of pupils on roll in 2024–25 was 789, out of a capacity of 830; this included 227 Sixth Formers (as of 2023). Teaching follows the National Curriculum and pupils generally sit examinations for ten or eleven General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) qualifications in Year Eleven (aged 15–16). They have a choice of three or four A-levels in the sixth form, which is part of the Sleaford Joint Sixth Form consortium between Carre's, Kesteven and Sleaford High School and St George's Academy.
In 2024, the school received an "average" Progress 8 score; 67% of pupils achieved English and mathematics GCSEs at grade 5 or above, which was much higher than the national figure. The average A-Level grade in 2019 was a B−, the same as the national average; much higher proportions of A-Level leavers stay in education after Sixth Form (69%) and secure degrees than the national average, though the government's progression score for Carre's Sixth Form leavers assesses their rate of progression as "average" relative to pupils' prior attainment. An Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) inspection in 2023 graded Carre's Grammar School as "good" in every category.
History
The first school Carre's Grammar School was founded on 1 September 1604 by way of an indenture between Robert Carre (a member of the Carr or Carre family) and several local gentlemen. Carre granted 100 acres of agricultural land in Gedney to these men, who held the land in trust as feoffees. The lands were estimated to be worth £40 per annum and the indenture stipulated that £20 of this would be paid to the school master, while the remainder would be for the benefit of the town's poor.. These men were: Launcelott Carre of New Sleaford, Eilliam Burton of Holdingham, Robert Cammock the elder and Robert Cammock the younger, William Burton and Richard Warsop of New Sleaford and Thomas Hall and Thomas Swynton of Old Sleaford. The indenture stated that the school was to provide for "the better education of the Youth and Children born or inhabiting with their parents within New Sleaford, Old Sleaford, Aswarby, and Holdingham ... and in Quarrington, North Rauceby, South Rauceby, Anwick, Kirkby la Thorpe and Evedon." It is not known whether there was any other school in the town prior to the foundation of Carre's, although the indenture appointed Anthony Brown, already a schoolmaster, as the master; it thus seems likely that Carre already operated a school and his indenture codified pre-existing arrangements.
Throughout the 1620s the trustees reported problems receiving rents from the tenants in Gedney. Although the school received a bequest from a local gentleman, Robert Cammock, in 1631, which provided an additional income of £4 per annum, no more followed; the English Civil War also disrupted funding: rents were not collected between 1644 and 1646. These financial problems were compounded by the nature of the land itself: it was agricultural and not urban, thus it did not increase in value significantly in the 17th century. Carre's lagged behind other schools and its buildings fell into disrepair as the fixed endowment failed to keep up with inflation (despite the Gedney lands increasing in value to £180 by the early 19th century). In 1783, the foeffees (by then, often called trustees) spent £50 on improvements, but by 1794, the adjacent Carre's Hospital agreed that part of its building be pulled down to make way for a new schoolhouse. This did not materialise and pupils were taught in the vestry at St Denys' Church by the early 19th century. In 1816, the trustees discontinued the master's salary because there were "no duties to perform" at the school.
Revival, stagnation and modernisation The trustees met in 1821 and agreed that "much good" could come from reviving the school. In 1828 they petitioned the Court of Chancery for a scheme, which was approved in 1830, providing the master with a salary of £80 per annum. Four years later, the Chancery agreed to fund the rebuilding of the school at a site on Northgate. With the buildings complete, the school reopened on 1 August 1835.
Carre's maintained roughly 20 pupils on roll throughout the 1840s, but by 1858, this had fallen to two free scholars and two boarders. When the charity commissioners inspected the school the following year, they recommended that an usher be appointed to teach "commercial education" to supplement the Classics. In 1869 the Schools Enquiry Commission reported a "general dissatisfaction in the town" towards the school, finding "indifferent" discipline along with poor spelling, an inability to decline simple Latin nouns, and a low level of arithmetic. According to the report, the "general wish in the town is for a commercial school". Competition soon arose in the form of Mr Boyer's academy and later E. R. Dibben's commercial school at Mount Pleasant, Sleaford. Although the trustees were reorganised in 1876, Britain's agriculture suffered from foreign competition in the 1880s, which contributed to a decline in the rolls; a subsequent reduction of fees in 1889 proved ineffective and only twelve boys were in attendance the following year.
The Commissioner of Inquiries suggested that Kesteven County Council could support the teaching of art, modern languages and technical and scientific subjects through the Local Taxation Act 1890. In 1895 the governors agreed to affiliate with the Council, which granted them £35. The headmaster, Samuel Brown, appointed an assistant master and his wife was employed to teach art. The numbers rose so that in 1897 there were 33 pupils on roll, and the Committee granted a further £400 to pay for new accommodation and resources. The Governors, however, applied for £1,500 to build a new school entirely but the Council wanted it to be coeducational, which caused a lengthy stalemate. The demand for a coeducational school disappeared in 1902 when Sleaford and Kesteven High School for Girls opened as a private venture and so in 1904 a new building opened at Carre's, financed in part by the sale of the Gedney lands, while boarding accommodation followed in 1906. Following the Education Act 1902, Carre's received an allocation of £200 per pupil from the Board of Education, plus local authority assistance made in return for admitting pupils from local elementary schools. From 1919, elementary school pupils sat the entrance exam each term and those who passed were allocated the places which remained after fee-paying students had enrolled.
Post-war expansion and the comprehensive debate
The Education Act 1944 made secondary education available to all children up to the age of 15 and abolished fees for state-schooling; a "tripartite system" of secondary schooling was established to provide curricula based on aptitude and ability: grammar schools for "academic" pupils, secondary moderns for practical studies, and technical schools for science and engineering. Pupils were allocated to them depending on their score in the eleven-plus examination. Carre's became a Voluntary Controlled Grammar School; from 1945 all entry was by the County Selection Examination. By 1955, the school had 330 pupils on roll and the need for new accommodation was met in the 1950s and 1960s by a major building programme at the Northgate site; completed in 1966, this added dedicated classroom blocks, a canteen and hall.Sleaford Standard. 20 May 1966. p. 28
The educational opportunities for secondary modern pupils were limited compared to those at grammar schools, prompting criticism of the tripartite system. In 1965, the Labour Government issued Circular 10/65 requesting Local Education Authorities implement comprehensive schooling. In 1971 Sleaford parents voted in favour of comprehensive education, but rejected the Council's proposals. A new plan which envisaged Carre's becoming a sixth form college was supported by parents in a vote (1,199 to 628), albeit with a 50% turnout; the County Council approved it but allowed governors a veto. Following negotiations with governors at Carre's, the scheme was revised so that Carre's would be an 11–18 school and adsorb Sleaford Secondary Modern's Church Lane site. Despite support from most staff and all three headteachers, Lincolnshire County Council voted to return the scheme for consultation in 1975. A new system was proposed which retained all three schools, and when the Government ordered the Council to choose a comprehensive scheme in 1977 it submitted that proposal, which had become popular with parents. The next year the government dismissed it on grounds that the Sixth Forms would be too small, but the council voted against the two-school system once more.
Grant-maintained status and Academy conversion
The 1979 general election brought a Conservative government to power and allowed the Council to shift its focus towards retaining Grammar Schools where they still existed and improving schools where work had been put on hold during the comprehensive debate; despite 90% of English councils adopting comprehensive education, Lincolnshire had retained many of its grammar schools. Although the County Council began discussing the abolition of them again in 1985, opposition from parents at a public consultation in 1987 resulted in the plans being dropped.
With the question of its future resolved, Carre's applied for grant-maintained status in 1989; the Education Secretary approved the proposals and formally granted the status in September 1990.23 January 1991. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). col. 201. When grant-maintained status was abolished in 1999, Carre's became a Foundation School. Following a successful bid to the DfES, submitted in 2002, the school was granted specialist Sports College status in 2003. An all-weather pitch was laid out in 2007, and a new technology building with a fitness suite opened in 2011. In 2009, Carre's became a specialist Science College and a lead school for gifted and talented students.Carre's Grammar School. 2013 (Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills). p. 3