Scarborough Sixth Form College reunion planned 49 years after it opened

The Scarborough Sixth Form reunion will be held on Saturday September 24, at Scarborough Rugby Club.

The reunion is being organised by Linda Sidgwick (formerly Beveridge), Margaret Cochrane (formerly Dixon) and Jane Collins (formerly Seymour).

Scarborough Sixth Form will celebrate its 50-year anniversary next year, but the reunion is being held this year for pupils from the 1972 school year.

This is because at the time, Scarborough was changing to a co-educational comprehensive model of education.

Linda Sidgwick said: “What made it a particularly unique and significant time for us, was that as we completed our ‘O’ Levels in the summer of 1972 (as they were back then), Scarborough was preparing to make the momentous change to its schooling system in line with the rest of the country the following year, in changing from the grammar school single sex system to the co-educational comprehensive model of education.

“The Scarborough Boys’ High School building was chosen to become the new comprehensive Graham School, along with many of the teachers from the Girls Grammar School. The Scarborough Girls’ High School building was to become the new Sixth Form college for the town, with the majority of the teachers coming from the Boys’ High School.

“Consequently in September 1972, for our year group, plans were made for us to spend our lower sixth year at the Boys’ High to have continuity with the same teachers for both the lower and upper sixth academic years.

“So although the Sixth Form College itself will be 50 years old in September 2023, our year group, both boys and girls, feel we have cause to celebrate this year, as we were the forerunners to a co-educational sixth form in Scarborough.”

Linda, Margaret and Jane re-met virtually, and decided that it was a special milestone and so wanted to hold a reunion.

The reunion is open to anybody of that year group, whether they went on to study at sixth form or not.

Linda added: “We all have many memories of this unprecedented scenario which led to us being the very first year group to ‘graduate’ from the then ‘brand new’ Scarborough Sixth Form College in July 1974.”

A Facebook group has been created called ‘Scarborough 6th Form College 1972 Reunion’, and the three women have enjoyed finding old friends from the year group through Facebook and Ancestry.com

Linda added: “Sadly, we have inevitably found that some of our friends have not made it to this age, and we would like to recognise this at the reunion with an ‘in memoriam’ list and hope that it is respectfully complete.”