Uplands School, Poole

The School on the site in St Osmunds Road began as the Bourne School for Girls in the old Sandecotes Manor as a select girls boarding school. They built School House, which was completed in 1895 and this building today houses the junior hall and the classrooms above it. In 1900, Lord Wimborne bought Bourne School and it became Sandecotes School, and in 1903 a sister school was opened in St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex which was called Uplands. At both schools pupils were trained to be practical, refined and cultured and were encouraged to enter universities, medical schools and hospitals. The Schools continued through the First World War, raising funds for the Red Cross and entertaining wounded soldiers, but at the break of World War Two it was decided to take Uplands away from the danger threatening England's channel ports by moving to Monmouthshire. Meanwhile in Parkstone, the Sandecotes School was struggling and the Church Education Corporation decided to close it rather than evacuate it to another area. During the war the School was occupied by the 2nd Battalion the Grenadier Guards and also by American soldiers as they prepared for the D-Day landings. In 1946 it was decided to move Uplands from Monmouthshire to the vacated Sandecotes buildings. The School continued as a girls boarding and day school, but in 1973 the old buildings were proving too costly and the School faced closure until Edith Cooper Dean stepped in to support it. The top site was sold off and new school buildings were built. The School became co-educational and also started a junior School, laying the foundation for joining UCST and merging with Wentworth College in 2009.[3]

• "Uplands School". 17 May 2007. Archived from the original on 17 May 2007. Retrieved 14 March 2010.