St Thomas More High School is a Roman Catholic bilateral academy school located in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, England. It caters for boys between the ages of 11 and 18 but has a mixed sixth form. The school is larger than the average sized secondary academy. 1,027 students were on the roll in September 2015 (including 500 sixth form students). The majority of pupils come from local Roman Catholic schools but the school does accept pupils from other Christian denominations. The school is located in the Diocese of Brentwood and the serving bishop is Rt. Revd. Alan Williams. The school's patron saint is St Thomas More, which is mainly celebrated annually on St Thomas More Day. The school is bounded on two sides by playing fields, belonging to two neighbouring schools, while private housing and a dual carriageway border the other two sides. A state-of-the-art extension to the school built by Davis Construction, opened in September 2019. Housing specialist subject and basic teaching rooms, and also includes an internal fitness suite. History The school opened as a two-form entry school in 1960 with around 100-200 pupils and has progressively expanded. In September 1973 it was extended to become a four-form entry school and its status was changed to a bilateral school offering 30 selective and 115 non-selective places. Various building projects have taken place including a modern sixth-form block, which was completed in 1996. The school became grant-maintained on 1 September 1993, and the first sixth-form intake was admitted in September 1996. It was converted to voluntary-aided status in September 1999. There was an extensive refurbishment project, completed in autumn 2001, which provided the school with a new reception area, extra classrooms, a brand new art department and an advanced music room with individual practice facilities. A new technology block was built in 2003, complete with state-of-the-art facilities. Former deputy head teacher and Head of RE Chris Danes, an author of best selling textbooks and fiction who has bipolar disorder and is now a writer and broadcaster, had to resign from the School in 1997 on the grounds of ill health and at the young age of 36. Danes maintains he retired from teaching after becoming dangerously ill in 1997, he believes largely because of the unsympathetic way he was treated at work. He talked candidly and movingly about this on a teacher's channel TV programme on mental health. Following protests by