Dartmouth High School opened in September 1964 as a secondary modern school, becoming comprehensive in September 1969. The original motto, suggested by the Classics Teacher Mr Bruce Graham was, "Gaudet, Tentamine et Virtus". The School originally had 8 houses, four in the A half and four in the B half. The A half houses were Churchill, Elgar, Sutherland and Nuffield. The B half houses were Hillary, Curie, Kennedy and Fleming. In the 1980s Nuffield and Hillary stopped taking pupils, leaving three active Houses in each half of the school. It became Q3 Academy in September 2008, although it initially existed in the old Dartmouth buildings. In August 2008, the project to rebuild the school began. It took 21 months to build, and was ready for students in April 2010, straight after the Easter Holiday. The old building was demolished and the final landscaping phase took place over the summer of 2010, ready for students to start in September of that year.
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The current head of school is Mr Mark Arnull. The previous principal, Caroline Badyal, is now the Chief Executive of the Q3 Academies Trust. She arrived on a secondment from the Dormston School in Sedgley in September 2002, and received the job on a permanent basis in April 2003. She also endorses the Motto, 'no child left behind'. It is sponsored by the Grace Charitable Trust, which sponsors many other academy schools across Britain. The main sponsor is locally-born businessman Eric Payne. As an Academy, it is independent, with limited power remaining with the local authority. In September 2008, the school became Q3 Academy, moving into a new school building within the original school's ground at the beginning of the summer term in April 2010. The first GCSE students to leave the academy in July 2009 achieved impressive grades, with 44% gaining five or more GCSEs at U or above. This placed it as third of Sandwell's 17 secondary schools. On 11 November 2010, HRH the Earl of Wessex officially opened the Academy. In September 2016, Q3 Academy Langley opened with a new site built on the former Langley High School. Mr Peter Lee is the head of school. This school was open to students in 2017 and is built throughout the students attending. The full building should be finished by late 2020. In early 2018 it was announced that the Q3 trust would be taking over ACE Academy in Tipton as the trust's third school, to be known as Q3 Academy Tipton.
School Fires
In 1985 the western edge of the School, including the main Churchill block and Sutherland were seriously damaged in a fire believed to be caused by arson. First year pupils were allocated form rooms in Temporary buildings on the tennis courts and the Maths and English departments used Temporary huts well into the 1990s whilst large sections of the School was rebuilt. In the five years before the creation of the academy, the original school was damaged by fire on two further occasions. The school's science block was destroyed by fire on 17 November 2003 and had to be completely rebuilt. It needed about 100 firefighters to bring the blaze under control. Around 200 pupils lost their coursework in the blaze. There was also a blaze in June 2006 in the first year block. The cause of the fire was ruled as arson.
