page_title: The John Fisher School
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: The John Fisher School / History
caption_attribution_description: English: St. John Fisher School, Shenley Road
context_page_description: The John Fisher School is a Roman Catholic voluntary-aided boys' faith school based at Peaks Hill, Purley, Croydon, Surrey, England. Today the school operates as a local standard Roman Catholic Comprehensive School, educating boys mainly from around South and Central Croydon. However, the school has a history of selection, and in the past has drawn pupils from across London and South East England.
  In spite of its Croydon postcode and location, the school is funded by the London Borough of Sutton. The school has operated selective admissions policies twice in its history, from when it was founded in 1929 until 1977, and more recently from 1991 to 2008. It was, alongside the London Oratory School, one of the last selective entry Catholic comprehensive schools to defy the Schools' Admissions Code by continuing to interview prospect pupils and their parents. There have been no parental interviews since 2008, with the final cohort of boys selected by interview leaving the school in the Summer of 2014.
  The school has grown since the end of its selection policy from 700 pupils to over 1000, and is set to grow even more beginning in 2016.
context_section_description: The John Fisher School was founded by Peter Emmanuel Amigo, Archbishop of Southwark, in 1929 at Duppas Hill in Croydon, and moved in 1931 to its current premises in Peaks Hill, Purley. It is the only currently-open school named after Saint John Fisher that was founded before his canonization in 1935. This is indicated by the absence of "Saint" from the school name. At the start of the 1970s the John Fisher School was a diocesan grammar school with an intake of fee-paying and non-fee-paying children. It had a small number of boarders until 1970 when a decision was made to end this facility. In 1977 it became an all-ability comprehensive school maintained by the London Borough of Sutton.
  In 1991, following discussion and a vote by parents, John Fisher was incorporated as a Grant Maintained School and operated a selection policy. Selection into the school was via an interview process involving candidates and their parents (to assess whether the boy and his family's ambitions and ethos were in harmony of those of the school) or by examination (for a minority of academic places). Also, a small number of young men were selected on the basis of musical ability or for sporting promise.
  Despite the school selecting all of its pupils it was nominally comprehensive because not all boys were selected purely on academic ability. GM Catholic schools that examined candidates and interviewed potential pupils and their parents were often controversial. In September 2008, the school stopped all forms of selection and became a local voluntary-aided comprehensive school, serving Croydon and Sutton, once more. In 2003, John Fisher School became a specialist sports college and construction began on a £1.2 million sports hall opened by Sir Bobby Robson.
  In recent years, due to tightening up in the schools' admissions code and the abolition of first preference first criteria, the school has developed and expanded to become more of a standard non-selective local Roman Catholic boys' comprehensive school, mainly serving the areas of South & Central Croydon, North Surrey, and Sutton.
caption: St. John Fisher School, Shenley Road.
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