es = 51.4636°N, -2.602°W](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Cotham///School///%28geograph///2818702%29.jpg) Name: Cotham School
Logo Size: 150px
Established: 1856 (as the Merchant Venturers' School)
Type: Secondary Academy
Head: Joanne Butler
Address: Cotham Drive
City: Bristol
Postcode: BS6 6DT
Country: England
Local Authority: Bristol City Council
Urn: 137440
Ofsted: Yes
Enrolment: 1487 (data from April 2018)
Capacity: 1480 (data from April 2018)
Gender: Mixed
Lower Age: 11
Upper Age: 18
Houses: Delta, Gamma, Sigma, Omega
Website: www.cotham.bristol.sch.uk
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Cotham School is a secondary school with academy status in Cotham, a suburb of Bristol, England. The catchment area for this school is Cotham, Clifton, Kingsdown, Southern Redland, Bishopston, St Paul's and Easton. The school shares a sixth form, the North Bristol Post 16 Centre, with nearby Redland Green School. The Cotham campus is situated in Charnwood House, although sixth form lessons also take place at the main school site. Construction on a new teaching and dining block was finished in 2018 and increased the school's capacity significantly. Cotham School is one of the few schools in the UK to have educated two Nobel laureates: Paul Dirac, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933, and Peter Higgs, who received the same award in 2013.

History

Cotham School was established in 1856. Its predecessor was the Merchant Venturers' School. Until the academic year 2000/01, Cotham was a grammar school. It became a comprehensive in 2001, and an academy in September 2011. A £20m redevelopment and expansion was completed in 2012, using funding from the Building Schools for the Future programme. The BBC drama Thirteen was filmed here in 2015.

Notable alumni