St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School is a Roman Catholic comprehensive

Comprehensive school

A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...

 secondary school

Secondary school

Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

 situated in Barry, Wales

Barry, Wales

Barry is a town and community in the Vale of Glamorgan in Wales. Located along the northern coast of the Bristol Channel less than south-southwest of Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, Barry is a seaside resort, with attractions including several beaches and the Barry Island Pleasure Park...

, Vale of Glamorgan

Vale of Glamorgan

The Vale of Glamorgan is a county borough in Wales; an exceptionally rich agricultural area, it lies in the southern part of Glamorgan, South Wales...

.

It is named after the Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 martyr

Martyr

A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

 St. Richard Gwyn. It is co-educational, and educates boys and girls from 11-16 years. Any pupils wishing to study at Sixth Form

Sixth form

In the education systems of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and of Commonwealth West Indian countries such as Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Jamaica and Malta, the sixth form is the final two years of secondary education, where students, usually sixteen to eighteen years of age,...

 usually attend St David's Roman Catholic Sixth Form College.

Its feeder schools include St Helen's Primary School, Barry, and St Joseph's Primary School, Penarth

Penarth

Penarth is a town and seaside resort in the Vale of Glamorgan , Wales, 5.2 miles south west from the city centre of the Welsh capital city of Cardiff and lying on the north shore of the Severn Estuary at the southern end of Cardiff Bay...

.

The school was originally named St Cadoc's until the name was changed in 1989. The address of the school also moved from Coldbrook Road, Dinas Powys

Dinas Powys

Dinas Powys is a large village and a community in the Vale of Glamorgan in South Wales which takes its name from the Dinas Powys hillfort that dates from the Iron Age...

to Argae Lane, Barry.

As of 2005, enrolment was 548, a school record, and further growth was projected. Demand for places had exceed supply in every year since 2000.