Queen Elizabeth High School

Story

Queen Elizabeth High School is a comprehensive school for Carmarthen town and its surrounding areas.The school is a mixed, bilingual, inclusive community comprehensive school of around 1500 pupils, catering for all abilities between the ages of 11 and 19. It was formed in September 2005 by the joining together of Queen Elizabeth Cambria and Queen Elizabeth Maridunum Schools which were located within 300m of each other. Prior to becoming Queen Elizabeth Maridunum School and Queen Elizabeth Cambria School, they were Ystrad Tywi school, (a Secondary Modern School which had merged with Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in 1978) and a Girls Grammar School respectively.In September 2005 the two schools merged to form Queen Elizabeth High School as part of the Modernising Education Programme by Carmarthenshire County Council. In 2006 all key stage 3 students were based on the Maridunum, or lower, campus and all GCSE and A-Level students were based on the Cambria, or upper, campus. Mr T.S. Day was the first headteacher of the new amalgamated Queen Elizabeth High School. Mr Alan Carter later became acting headteacher following Mr Day's retirement on ill health grounds. Mr Peter Spencer, formerly of Coedcae School in Llanelli, became headteacher of Queen Elizabeth High School at the start of term in September 2011.In September 2008, Daniyal Shahzad, a Pakistani national falsely claiming his name was Ahmer Rana, became a pupil at the school. Lodging with foster parents, on investigation in 2010 by the UK Border Agency, he claimed that he had no family. He was subject to a deportation order, and the school became the centre of a campaign to allow him to stay in the UK, which resulted in a 4,000 signature petition being collected and presented to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. After further investigation by S4C's current affairs programme 'Y Byd ar Bedwar' his true identity was revealed. Shahzad was deported to Pakistan on 1 June 2011. The flight was paid for by his school friends, so that he left the country voluntarily, which enables him to apply to re-enter the UK after one year, whereas he would have had to wait 10 years if he had been deported.