Kirkham Grammar School (KGS) is a leading independent day and boarding school for children aged two to 18. The school has a rich history and marked its 475-year anniversary in 2025. KGS is known for its elite co-curricular programme, which integrates academic excellence with a strong focus on sport, music and the arts. This holistic approach ensures pupils excel academically, socially and emotiona
lly. Centuries of Christian tradition underpin the education provided by Kirkham Grammar School, which was founded in 1549. Indeed its roots can be traced back to the chantry school attached to St. Michael’s Church, Kirkham, as long ago as the thirteenth century and it was here, in the Church grounds, that the school remained until it moved to occupy its present site on Ribby Road in 1911. In 1585 the Thirty Men of Kirkham, a group which administered parish business, took control of the school. It appears that they did not always perform their duties particularly well, for, by the early part of the seventeenth century, the school had fallen into disrepair and had been without a master for seven years. Isabell Birley, a humble alehouse keeper, came to the rescue in 1621, presenting the Thirty Men of Kirkham with £30 in her apron for the restoration of the school. In 1655 Henry Colburn, an old boy of the school, left money and land to the school in his will, putting it in the trust of the Company of Drapers in London. Then began a long and cherished partnership between the Company and the School, which has continued to the present day, though the Drapers surrendered control of the school in 1944, having endowed it with large and impressive extensions in 1938. Independent status ceased temporarily in 1944 when the school became a voluntary-aided boys’ grammar school. A further major extension, the Norwood Science Building was opened in 1965 and subsequently extended. In 1979 the Board of Governors took the bold decision to revert to independent status and Kirkham Grammar School became a co-educational school for the first time in its history. The last decade of the twentieth century witnessed a remarkable growth in the school’s popularity and standing, exhibited by a rise in pupil numbers from 500 to 900 and a spectacular programme of continuous development.
