THE HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL

We are a school with a history, and we are very proud of our traditions and of being traditional.
In 685 AD, St Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, visited Carlisle and founded both a school and a church. For the next 900 years the school continued around the grounds of the Cathedral.

In 1545 The Dean and Chapter of Carlisle Cathedral took on responsibility for the school in the Cathedral Close. The Cathedral was rededicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. The school occupied buildings on West Walls, some of which are part of the diocesan offices to this day.

In 1883 this school became Carlisle Grammar School and moved to Strand Road, into what is now the Carliol Building of the school, housing our Sixth Form Centre. Since that time, governors continue to be appointed by the Cathedral Foundation.

As the movement towards comprehensive schools took shape, in 1968 The Grammar School amalgamated with two fine local schools, The Margaret Sewell School (for girls) and The Creighton School (for boys), to become Trinity School – a Church of England Comprehensive School. In fact, these two schools had already joined forces by then, and all of the sites were along Strand Road, which we now occupy, giving us a lot of space!

Recent developments include becoming a specialist Language College in 1998, with an increasingly international perspective to our work, shown today in the Uganda Project, the USA Exchange Scheme, and our many overseas visits and links.

Trinity School became a Grant Maintained School in the 1990s, until 1999 when we became a Church of England Voluntary Aided School. In September 2011, we began our work as a Church of England Academy.

While we cannot claim unbroken links to the school which began in 685 AD, we are in many ways a traditional school. Our history is important to us, especially in 2008 when we celebrated our 40th anniversary with reunions, a service of thanksgiving and other special events.

We are also innovative and creative in our approach. This is a busy school, and also a happy one. Our sense of the past underlines the importance of what we do together in the present school.

The rebuilding of the 11-16 school was completed in September 2012, we now have facilities right up to date and of the highest quality.