King Edward's School (KES), Bath, Somerset, England is an independent co-educational day school providing education for 1,134 pupils aged 3 to 18. The school is a member of The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference.
The school was established in the 16th century in a city centre site, founded in 1552. In the 1960s it moved to the outskirts onto a multi building site. In addition to the academic curriculum the schools includes drama, music, sport and a combined cadet force.
King Edward's School Bath was judged as "excellent" in every category in the school's 2015 Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) report. The report noted that "The school's extra-curricular provision is outstanding", "Achievements outside the curriculum are both numerous and outstanding" and "The quality of the pupils' achievements and learning is excellent".
The school was ranked as one of the top four independent schools in the south west by The Sunday Times Schools Guide, Parent Power Survey based upon 2016 academic results.
History
The school was founded in 1552 under laws set out in the Charities Act of 1545, which had been passed by Henry VIII to use funds from the dissolution of the monasteries to replace monastic grammar schools such as that run by Bath Abbey. The Mayor of Bath and one of the members of parliament for Bath, Edward Ludwell, petitioned Edward VI for land previously owned by the priory, to establish the school, initially in Frog Lane (present-day New Bond St) then outside the city walls, to support ten poor people, which also prevented the crown from selling off the land previously held by the priory. In 1583 the school moved to the disused Church of St Mary by the north gate of the city just within the city walls. The city corporation misappropriated the considerable funds from the land granted under Letters Patent, failing to maintain or improve the school until it was exposed in the Court of Chancery in 1734. Around 1750 a new building was erected for the school in Broad Street.
The secondary school relocated from its site at Broad Street in central Bath in the 1960s to a site at North Road in the southeastern edge of the city, previously occupied by St Christopher's Preparatory School. The junior school (7- to 11-year-olds) remained on the Broad Street site until the summer of 1990 (often mis-quoted as 1986, possibly due to errors originally made in an architectural report from the early 2000s and repeated by the local Planning Office) when it transferred to a new building in the North Road school grounds. The old Broad Street site, which was built in 1754 by Thomas Jelly and is a Grade II* Listed building, remains empty. In 1997 an application to turn the building into a public house by Samuel Smith Brewery was refused. A scheme for use as a hotel has also been withdrawn. The building remains on the Heritage at Risk Register but work to repair the roof has reduced the risk to the property. Proposals to use it as a temporary shelter for the homeless were rejected in 2018, by the brewery, claiming that work would be "commencing very soon".
In the 1990s, while Peter Winter was Headmaster the school took the steps towards full co-education. In 2005 there were plans to move the 'pre-preparatory' school, located in Weston, Bath, on to the North Road site. However, for a range of reasons it never materialised. In 2008 the school achieved the best examination results of Bath schools for A level and GCSE examination results.