Newcastle-under-Lyme School

Newcastle-under-Lyme School was founded in 1602 by Sir Richard Cock, a Tudor merchant from Newcastle-under-Lyme, as a grammar school for the boys of the Staffordshire market town immediately west of what is now Stoke-on-Trent (The Potteries). The school operated as a boys' grammar school for over 370 years before becoming co-educational in 1981, and today educates around 889 pupils ages 3-18 across an integrated Junior and Senior School structure. The Headmaster is Michael Getty.

The school is a member of the HMC and is inspected by the ISI. The school's central Newcastle-under-Lyme location places it immediately adjacent to Stoke-on-Trent — the historic Potteries city of Wedgwood, Spode, Royal Doulton and Mintons — and on the doorstep of Keele University. The geographic position has produced a particularly strong Keele University Medical School pipeline.

The school's academic profile is mid-to-top quintile Midlands independent, with strong A-Level results and a strong Russell Group pipeline reflecting the substantial bursary programme. The 424-year-history of the school is preserved in the school's archives and chapel, and the Newcastle-under-Lyme Educational Foundation has continued to fund substantial bursary remissions since the Tudor period, maintaining the founding 1602 grammar-school principle of educational access for Staffordshire families regardless of family means.

The school's most internationally famous alumnus is Sir Stanley Matthews CBE — the Stoke City and Blackpool footballer known as "the Wizard of the Dribble", the only footballer to be knighted while still playing, the first European Footballer of the Year (1956), and the man whose performance in the 1953 FA Cup Final (the "Matthews Final") is widely regarded as among the greatest single-match displays in association football history. Matthews was educated partly at the school in the 1920s before turning professional with Stoke City at fifteen.