12th October 2020 — A student from RGS Newcastle was the youngest person named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list announced at the weekend for the contributions he made to the community during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic.

16-year old student Theo Wride from Sunderland, will receive a British Empire Medal (BEM) “for services to the community and keyworkers in Sunderland during Covid-19.”

Theo gave hundreds of hours of his time designing and creating protective face coverings for his parents, both medical professionals, and their colleagues as well as care home staff up and down the country.

Theo used the 3D printer he had at home to produce the face coverings. The not-so-simple task involved melting plastic and then extruding this into the face visor shape. At the start. Theo was making four visors a day, before fine-tuning some of the settings to allow for production to increase to six/seven.

With demand for his visors increasing due to the PPE shortage across the NHS and Care sectors, Theo successfully raised £3,000 through a crowdfunding campaign enabling him to increase his production to 70 visors in 24 hours thanks to the addition of new materials and printers.

Theo, who hopes to have a career in engineering, was also recently honoured with an Arkwright Engineering Scholarship. Each scholarship supports students through their Sixth Form studies and consists of an annual financial award and access to enrichment activities, such as industry visits and mentors, to enhance the scholar’s experience of engineering in an industrial context.

Speaking about Theo’s inclusion in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, Geoffrey Stanford, Headmaster, said:

“It was a great delight to hear that Theo had been awarded a British Empire Medal for his extraordinary efforts in the creation of much needed PPE for the local community of Sunderland and beyond.”

“We are extremely proud of Theo; he really does exemplify the sense of community we work so hard to promote at RGS.”

20th August 2020 — Despite the unprecedented year, students at RGS Newcastle have excelled by achieving exemplary GCSE results. 89% of GCSE grades were 7-9 (equivalent to the old A-A* grades) with 71% of GCSE grades being 8/9 (equivalent to the old A* grade).

The 2019/20 Year 11 cohort, made up of 140 students, are to be congratulated on the tremendous effort they have displayed despite the circumstances they have encountered due to the global coronavirus pandemic. Of this group, 16 students achieve straight 9s across their GCSE subjects, with 11 of these securing 11 GCSEs at grade 9.

In particular, the school is immensely proud of the seven means-tested bursary students, who this year collectively secured 72 GCSEs across 17 different subjects. Three of these students secured 11 8/9s (equivalent to the old A* grade).

Means tested bursary students, who represent 5% of the RGS student population, are all exceptional young people, from families who would not be able to attend the school without the philanthropic support of benefactors.

Despite discovering that they would no longer sit GCSE exams due to the Government’s enforced school closures, all Year 11 students began remote transition learning, in preparation for the beginning of their A Level subjects in September alongside the 39 students who will be joining the RGS Sixth Form for the new academic year.

These GCSE results continue the outstanding trend that has seen RGS Newcastle consistently ranked first in the Sunday Times’ Parent Power list of the top independent schools in the North of England.

Geoffrey Stanford, Headmaster, said:

“This has been a very tough year for all, especially those in exam year groups, or looking towards concluding GCSEs or A Levels next summer. These tremendous GCSE results, based on the assessments of teachers who know our students best, are a good reflection of both the effort they have put into their studies over the years and their ability. They continue the consistently high academic achievements year on year at the RGS.”

3rd July 2019 — The RGS cricket team has been given a big reason to smile following news of a sponsorship deal with Queensway Dental.

Members of the 1st X1 are looking forward to another enjoyable and successful season sporting their new kit, thanks to the generous donation from the dental surgery which has practices in Jesmond and Billingham.

This exciting new partnership not only benefits the team but also allows additional funding to be put into the school’s bursary scheme, helping students to continue to thrive.

Speaking about the sponsorship, Director of Development, Susan Beck, said: “We are so pleased to have formed this new relationship with Queensway Dental and look forward to working with them over the coming year.

“This partnership is especially exciting as it strengthens our ties with our local community, something which is important to all of us at RGS.”

RGS’ first X1 contains the best cricketers from the senior year groups, aged 15 to 18, with all the students in the team having played county age group cricket. The team plays block and single fixtures against other schools, cricket academies, county age group sides, visiting teams such as MCC and overseas touring sides.

While the team often enjoys much success throughout the season, the highlight of this year was the win over Durham Academy following a stunning all round team performance, the best part of which was an unbeaten century from one of the players, Bobby Green.

Queensway Specialist Orthodontist and partner, Dr Guy Deeming, said: “We are delighted to support RGS and feel proud to see our name on the front of the kit of this successful team.

“Supporting our local community is something very important to us and we are really looking forward to working closely with RGS. We hope this relationship can continue to develop and grow in the future.”

2nd April 2019 — Newcastle’s leading independent school, Royal Grammar School (RGS), has been victorious for the very first time at the Rosslyn Park National Schools Sevens competition, winning the Under 18 Bowl title, 26-17 against Felsted School.

The prestigious sevens’ competition saw 144 teams from across the country compete in the Vase competition. RGS made it through their initial group of four as winners and headed into an elimination match against Rugby School (eventual runners-up), which saw the midlands side take a convincing 29-0 victory.

The loss put RGS into the Bowl competition, and they would face an up-hill battle to progress through the tough group stages.

RGS were up for the task, beating two very good sides in Berkhamsted and Mount St Mary’s in their quarter final pool before facing an even tougher semi-final pool alongside St. Peter’s York and Campion.

The group was very tightly contested and eventually went down to point’s difference. RGS beat St Peter’s, but lost to Campion, who had in turn lost to St Peter’s. With all three teams being tied, RGS progressed to the final thanks to a +5 points difference.

The final was full of swings in momentum with both RGS and Felsted giving everything to score. Felsted held the lead for a while at 17-14, but could not keep RGS at bay, with the boys digging deep to take the lead 19-17 before making a poignant stop in front of their try-line, winning the ball back and making their way convincingly down the field and scoring the penultimate try to take a brilliant victory. Nathan Byatt grabbed two try in the final as well as a match winning tap-tackle in the last minute of the game to secure the victory.

Speaking of the victory, Director of Sport Angela Ponton said,

“Becoming Rosslyn Park National Sevens’ Tournament Bowl winners is a fantastic achievement for this squad, for it is a physically and mentally tiring tournament.

“It caps off a superb final year for many of the squad who will leave RGS as winners of two national titles.”

It has been an excellent season for the first team who also won the St Joe’s Festival in the autumn. It also marks a fitting end to a fantastic career for first team coach, Jim Pollock, who retires from the school at the end of the year. He said,

“It has been an honour to coach this team, and an absolute pleasure to watch them win the bowl competition at the biggest rugby festival in the world.

“The boys are a credit to the school and rugby in the North East, both on and off the field, and I couldn’t be prouder of their achievements.”

8th March 2019 — Students at Newcastle’s leading independent school, Royal Grammar School (RGS), have held a major book collection all week as part of its World Book Day activities.

To celebrate World Book Day 2019, students, their parents and staff at the school were asked to donate any unwanted books, from much-loved children’s books to adult’s books, fiction and non-fiction, to create a giant book tree within the school reception. With so many books donated, the book tree multiplied to become a book forest.

Following the completion of the book collection, RGS will donate all the books collected to local state primary schools and charity, Borderline Books.

The local state primary schools that will benefit from the children’s books are those that RGS Sixth Form students regularly visit as part of their voluntary service. Students visit these schools every week, volunteering 5000 hours per year to deliver reading sessions to some of their youngest students.

Borderline Books is a Gateshead-based charity who will take all the adults’ books and distribute these to a number of local community groups that they work with, including women’s refuges and old people’s homes.

John Fern, Headmaster of RGS, said:

“I am incredibly proud of the efforts our students, their families and staff have made by donating such a large amount of books. I’m sure those that will benefit from these donations will be very thankful for our support. ”

The book collection is just one of the many philanthropic activities regularly taking place at RGS; one of the many ways the RGS gives back to the local community.

23rd August 2018 — Students at top Newcastle school, Royal Grammar School (RGS), have achieved a record-breaking set of GCSE results with 62.8% achieving the top grade of A* or 8/9.

Despite all the concerns surrounding the new and more rigorous GCSE exams and the 9-1 grading system, this year’s results for RGS students has seen the highest level of A* or 8/9 passes achieved in the school’s history.

This is the first year that students have taken some of the 9-1 style exams and they have truly excelled. An incredible 54.2% of all new grades were at the top level 9 and in Maths, an astounding 63% scored grade 9.

Overall all 145 students achieved outstanding results:

- 62.8% of grades were at the top A* or 8/9
- 85.2% were either A*/ A or 9-7
- 98% were at A*-C or 9-4
- 90 students achieved all A*/A and 9-7 grades
           - 23 students achieved all A* and 8/9 grades
           - 21 achieved all A* and 9 grades.

Headmaster John Fern was delighted with the results, commenting:

“These really are fabulous results and the students and staff thoroughly deserve credit for all of their hard work. To achieve such excellent results at the very top of the new grading system shows just how well they have done, especially when there has been such concern about how the new system will work.

“This should give them real confidence going into their A Level courses knowing that they are continuing to achieve results that rank well with the best in the country.”