Short answers, pulled from the story.
William Shakespeare is widely believed to have attended King Edward VI School between the ages of seven and fourteen. His father John Shakespeare held the office of bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon in 1568, which entitled William to a free place at the school. No attendance record survives, so his attendance remains probable but unconfirmed.
The school traces its origins to May 1295, when the ordination of a rector scholarum named Richard was recorded in the Diocese of Worcester. Its formal charter dates to June 1553, when King Edward VI established Stratford-upon-Avon as a borough; the charter was granted nine days before the king died of tuberculosis, making it the last of the King Edward VI Schools.
In 2020, The Sunday Times named King Edward VI School the State Secondary School of the Decade, citing sustained academic performance over ten years. A separate Ofsted Parent View analysis also ranked it among the joint-happiest secondary schools in England, with 99 per cent of parents reporting their child was happy at the school.
Notable alumni include Richard Field, the Elizabethan printer associated with Shakespeare's poems; Reginald Warneford, the first naval airman to receive the Victoria Cross in 1915; General Richard Nelson Gale, who commanded the 6th Airborne Division at the invasion of Normandy in 1944; Tim Pigott-Smith, who won the BAFTA for Best Actor in 1985; and Olympic silver medallist rower Esme Booth, who competed at Paris 2024.
Edward's Boys is a theatre group founded and run by former deputy head Perry Mills. It grew from the school's involvement with Michael Wood's documentary series In Search of Shakespeare. In 2014 the group won an Owle Schreame Award for their production of Galatea, and they have since performed at venues including the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London and the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Pedagogue's House, first built in 1427, is believed to be the oldest half-timbered schoolroom in England. The Guildhall, also from the fifteenth century, contains the first-floor room known as Big School, where William Shakespeare is believed to have been taught. The ground floor of the Guildhall still shows the holes where rods once supported a temporary stage for travelling players.