Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School
| Motto |
Latin: Sub Umbra Alarum Tuarum ("Under the shadow of thy wings") |
|---|---|
| Established | 1701 |
| Type |
Grammar School; Academy |
| Headteacher | Mr Eliot Hodges |
| Founder | Sir Joseph Williamson |
| Location |
Maidstone Road Rochester Kent ME1 3EL England Coordinates: 51°22′13″N 0°29′55″E / 51.3703°N 0.4987°E |
| DfE number | 887/4530 |
| DfE URN | 136662 Tables |
| Ofsted | Reports |
| Students | 1250 |
| Ages | 11–18 |
| Houses | Bridge, Castle, Gordon, Pitt, River, Thetford |
| Colours | Yellow, Blue, Navy and Black |
| Alumni | Old Williamsonians |
| Alumni Network | http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3723046 |
| Website | www |
Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School (SJWMS) is a boys' grammar school with academy status in Rochester, Kent, also referred to either as Rochester Maths or The Maths School.
The school was founded by the 17th-century politician Sir Joseph Williamson, who bequeathed £5,000 to set up the school and another at Thetford in Norfolk. The school was termed a mathematical school because it specialised in teaching navigation and mathematics to the sons of Freemen of the City of Rochester, the Chatham Naval Dockyard being nearby.
The first building was in 1708 when a "schoolroom" was built in part of the filled up moat outside the city walls. In 1840 additional rooms were built and in both 1882 and 1893 additions were made. In the late 1960s the buildings were demolished and the site is now a car park next to a nightclub. It is said that the local authority did not know part of the old city wall with a small tower ran through the school buildings, and as a result no further development of the site was allowed. The school's playing fields and swimming pool were originally by the River Medway off Rochester Esplanade; they are now off Maidstone Road, Rochester, next to the area known as Priestfields (not to be confused with Gillingham FC's stadium, Priestfield). An annexe (now known as P block) was built at the Maidstone Road site in the 1950s, housing all the first forms, and two classes each from the second and third years. In autumn 1968, the whole school moved to a new building the site. Initially this featured a main block, hall, sports hall, gymnasium, 25-metre indoor swimming pool and science block. The school's music block was expanded in 2005 to include a new teaching room and several new practice rooms.
In the 1990s a sixth-form centre was constructed and at the turn of the century a maths block was created upon the old staff car park. The sixth-form centre houses a series of classrooms for the use of pupils throughout the school. There are still two sets of temporary classrooms. The school also has extensive sports facilities, including an artificial turf pitch for hockey, two cricket pitches, tennis courts, football and rugby pitches as well as the swimming pool, gym, and sports hall.
A new mathematics centre was opened in 2002, in line with the Math's new status as a specialist school for maths and computing. The incorporation of a computing discipline contrasted markedly with the school's attitude towards computing as an educational discipline in the late 1980s, where it was stated that "there's no future in software". In 2006 the school scrapped its A-level computing course, this despite having received specialist funding to teach the subject. After a six-year gap A-level computing was reinstated as an 11-pupil pilot subject in 2011, After positive results achieved by the pilot group, the option to take computing at A-level and GCSE was reintroduced for 2013.
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