Kesgrave Hall School was a boys' Boarding school

Boarding school

A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...

 in Kesgrave

Kesgrave

Kesgrave is a small town in the English county of Suffolk on the northern edge of Ipswich.-Early history:The town was recorded as Gressgrava in the Domesday Book, by the late 15th century its name had become Kesgrave...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, that specialised in educating disruptive pupils

Student

A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...

.

History

This was the fourth school to be based at Kesgrave Hall

Kesgrave Hall

Kesgrave Hall is a country house located in woodlands north of the suburban village of Kesgrave, which itself is on the eastern outskirts of Ipswich, in Suffolk. It was constructed in 1812 by William Cunliffe-Shawe, and has been extended since, notably by the addition of a northern extension...

, opening in 1976. The school closed in 1993, but a new school opened there immediately afterwards, with many of the same staff and faculty. Kesgrave Hall School was founded by teachers from a boys' junior boarding school, Heanton in Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

.

Ethos

The teachers found that boys from that school were ill-served by their secondary schools. The school's prospectus, which was still in use in the late 1980s, decried the use of children as "educational guinea-pigs" and assured that the school preferred to rely on "tried-and-tested old-fashioned methods".

As with Heanton, Kesgrave Hall was established for boys with a strong academic

Academia

Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...

 ability but with perceived emotional or behavioural problems. In particular it catered for pupils who had been excluded from mainstream schools for disruptive behaviour. It had a strong academic focus, but also taught vocational subjects such as woodwork.

Incidents

Alan Stancliffe had been convicted, in 1982 and again in 1999, of indecently assaulting four boys at Kesgrave Hall School where he had been a teacher from 1978 to 1980.

Closing and aftermath

The school closed in 1993, at a time when a number of similar establishments in the UK were closing. However a new school called Shawe Manor opened immediately afterwards, though run by different owners, the headmaster most of the staff and most of the pupils transferred to the new school.